


The villains or the vilified?

by Sharkbit11



Series: The hunted fireteam [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 12:16:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 29,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18549601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharkbit11/pseuds/Sharkbit11
Summary: With Sarah the only surviving guardian of the tower after enceledus, her word is law. Everything she says is taken as truth, but unfortunately for Austin and Nathan, none of it us good. After a fight from a hostile fireteam, Austin captures a hunter named jess but loses his ghost to Sarah. With a reputation of murder and deceit, Austin will have to convince Jess to be on his side as he searches for his ghost. With differing information on each side, Jess will have to come to her own conclusions about the Hunted fireteam.





	1. Friend or foe?

The ghost didn't see them. A warlock and a Hunter were in the trees, watching the ghost work. They were somewhere in old America. Neither knew exactly where, just the way back to camp. As the ghost moved on the warlock teleported through the trees, branch to branch. While the Hunter dropped down holding a smoke grenade which detonated in his hand, making him vanish from sight. They followed the ghost, picking off fallen that got close. Eventually the ghost stopped and went into some densely packed plants. the guardians dropped down right in front of the bushes and drew their weapons. One hand cannon and one sidearm sweeping the brush as they walked through. A blue flash and voices made their pace increase. As they got to a small clearing under a giant oak tree they heard screaming by a fallen and a human. The warlock started sprinting through the clearing to the other side of the tree. He saw a fallen vandal with sword raised, poised to strike down a human female with her arms raised to protect her face. The warlock reached out his hand and summoned the light to manipulate the fallen's death blow. Blink.

When The new guardian was ressurected all she saw was a flash of light and she felt the emptiness in her lungs. One deep breath later she was trying to focus on the blurry mass of colors that was her world. Eventually her vision cleared enough so that she could see her surroundings. She was propped up on a giant tree in a small clearing surrounded by dense woods. A pressure was on her head meaning she was wearing A helmet. She looked down at herself and saw she was wearing alot of heavy armor "A titan. Makes sense." She heard from above her. A white thing was floating above her looking at her with its one eye. She tried to talk, but all she got was pain and a coughing fit. The white thing flew closer, the titan to tried to move because if the sudden action but her limbs were so stiff it hurt to move. The thing talked again in a soft male voice. "So, obvious questions first. I am a ghost, and you are a guardian. You have been dead for" the ghost paused "around a hundred years." The titan's eyes widened and the ghost knew what that meant. "You can ask all the questions you want later, but right now we need to move. I've been hearing close gunshots got my entire time here looking for you. Focus on moving." Just then a screech exploded from the bushes. "Scratch that last part. Get moving, now!" The ghost disappeared in a soft flash of blue. The titan worked on getting up despite the pain she was feeling by moving. When she was almost fully standing. She was knocked back down against the tree, hard. She looked at her assailant and saw a creature with a mask, and four eyes. It also had four arms, in two of which were blue swords crackilling with electricity. It raised one of its swords to bring down on her head and screeched. The titan also raised her arms to protect the creatures target and screamed as well. When the creature brought it's sword down it suddenly jerked and hit her left shoulder, buering itself into the titans flesh. She heard a sound and she turned to look at it. A person was there, where they wern't before. They pushed the creature's arm off the sword bueried in the titans shoulder and spun to grab the creature's neck with their other hand. They slammed the creature's face into the tree above her. A blue liquid dropped down on the titan from behind the mask of the creature. The person then threw the creature on the ground and made a movement to punch it. But their hand was open when it stopped a few inches from the creature's now exploded head. The person looked at the titan When a knife flew from oitside the titan's field of view and hit another one of the same creature directly in the forehead. The first person walked up to the titan and said. "Greetings, titan. I am Austin and that one there" another person wearing diffrent armor than the red dress-like armor Austin was wearing walked behind Austin "is Nathan." Austin looked at the titans shoulder and said "come on out, little light. Your guardian is hurt" the ghost appeared again in the same soft flash of blue light and flew over to the sword embedded in the titans shoulder. A blue beam went out from his eye and focused on the sword and the titans wound. Austin put his hands on either side of her head and lightly turned her helmet a bit. Some sort of seal was broken as the titan heard the hiss of air escaping. Austin pulled her helmet off and she squinted and blinked as the sunlight hit her face. 

Austin put the helmet on the ground behind her and made note of her face. She was light-skinned with piercing green eyes. Her hair was red and had Austin not known better he would have said she was in her early twenties. Austin's attention turned to her wound. He turned to Nathan and said "check the perimeter. That scuffle could have attracted more fallen." Nathan nodded and went into the thick woods, hand cannon raised. Austin turned back to the titan. He looked at the sword and the ghost still floating around it and sighed. He went into one of the bags on his waist and pulled out a strip of leather. He folded it on itself twice and raised it to the titans mouth. When she looked at it wierd he explained. It's to bite so you don't damage your teeth when we pull that out. He motioned to the sword. The titan opened her mouth and let Austin place the leather which she then bit down on. Austin stood up and went over to the sword. He grabbed the hilt and the titan bit harder as Austin yanked the sword out. The titan yelped in pain and felt tears rise in her eyes. Her ghost instantly went to work repairing the wound. The titan groaned and reached for the wound before Austin caught her hand and shook his head. After the ghost was done Austin let her hand go and she felt her shoulder. No hint of it being almost chopped in half with a sword remained. Austin extended a canteen of water to her which she accepted and drank gratefully. After a bit Nathan reappeared saying that the fight attracted nothing but It just so happened that a large fallen patrol was heading towards them. Austin extended a hand to the titan and he helped her to her feet. "Where are we going?" The titan asked after fighting with her less critically dry throat. Austin put her hand over his shoulders and helped her walk. "To camp. It's just a short ride back." When they got past the thick brush the titans legs were more fit to carry her and she decided to try walking on her own. After testing her legs she found that she was fine. Nathan tossed her helmet to her and the trio ran into the forest.


	2. A vision of names

The titan was sitting on the forest floor. The two guardians had led her to a clearing in the woods on a Cliffside. The edge looked over a sea of green trees, only broken by the occasional ruins of a long destroyed building. The titan looked and marveled at the view as Austin and Nathan went around camp doing various tasks. By now night had fallen and they were all sitting around a small campfire that Austin made. The titan used the silence as an opportunity to study the armor of her hosts. Austin's armor was red and had the look of overlapping canvas on his robes (she had been told they were robes by the guardian in question after she had called his armor a dress) his chest had the look of a soft metal, but she knew from experience it was the same material as his robes. His boots looked like regular boots she knew she could find at the store but modified to have the same look and feel as the rest of his armor. His gauntlets were the only piece that had metal on them. His arms were protected by a thin metal while his hands were wrapped in a dark blue rope. Nathan had vastly diffrent armor from his friend. He had a shirt with a metal armor plate going from his shoulders to the bottom of his chest. It was obviously painted with an orange V and another line beside the V matching it's tilt. His pants were just brown jeans with gun holsters strapped to it and black boots. His gauntlets were made up of some material the titan hadn't seen before. It was painted silver and gave the gauntlets a sharp and jagged appearance. The helmet Nathan was wearing was silver and had a metal tube where his mouth should be, like a gas mask. And the eyes of his helmet were glowing yellow. They both had the same symbol on the last price if their armor. Nathan had a long white and grey cape and Austin had a piece of cloth around his arm projecting a symbol Nathan described as the ace of spades. Their ghosts were out too. Nathan's was bright green with a red mark on her top section. Austin's, however looked just like the titan's: white. She decided to break the silence. "So" she winced at how her word pierced the silence. All heads, including those of all three ghosts, turned to look at her. "Is it just you two out here? Or do you have anyone else?" The guardians turned back to the fire. Austin had his head hung low and the titan could see Nathan's hands shaking as he stired the coals with a long stick. Wrong question. She was about to apologise when Austin awnsered quietly "we used to, for a short time." The titan took the hint and changed the subject. "So your ghosts. They found you like mine did me?" They both nodded their heads. Austin's ghost spoke up "we did. I found Austin in a storage closet." Nathan's ghost also awnsered "and I found this dumbass in a trench. Not like the ones in war, like a full on, I-cant-see-the-bottom trench." They all chuckled at her tone. "So you ghosts are sentient, right? Just like I am?" She asked the flying machines. Austin's ghost said "yep" and that was that. Austin got up and stretched his limbs and told the group "I do believe it's time to sleep. Casper, will you be so kind as to take the first watch?" Austin's ghost agreed and Nathan got up. "watch?" The titan asked Nathan awnsered over his shoulder "we are surrounded by fallen, like the ones that attacked you, so one of us has to stay up to make sure we aren't killed in our sleep." That was a good enough reason for the titan and she went off to find a flat, dry pice of ground to sleep on.

That night Austin had a dream. It started off like it normally does. The red legion ships, the defenders flashing. The massacre. But this time it went on for longer, it went on to the grassy forest where they found the titan. Austin and the girl in his dreams were holding hands fleeing through the forest when a flash of blue electricity and a pain in Austin's hand. The girl was pulled away and all Austin saw was a flash of red hair and a look of fear from piercing green eyes. A name came to his mind as he picked up his ring from where it fell. He looked at the ruins of an old city and started running for it. Austin woke up with the name still in his mind.

Natalie

The titan was sitting with her legs dangilling over the cliff edge, looking out over the forest below. Her ghost was behind her, watching her. "I know you're there." She said back to him, so he flew over to her. "Hey." He said softly "hey." She said back. Her ghost looked at the forest as well. "What's bugging you?" The titan chuckled and sighed "oh, it's just an existential crisis. I'll be fine." The ghost was silent for a few moments. His back plates were twirling every few moments, until finally he said "I wanna show you something." The titan looked at her ghost and asked him what that was. "First you have to close your eyes and open your mind." The titan tried to do as instructed. After a little bit she felt a slight buzzing in her mind. Like a feeling she couldn't shake. She opened her eyes and looked at her ghost. He also had his eye closed. The buzzing grew stronger until it became an itching, pulsing push on the edge of her consciousness. She put her hands on her head and rode the waves of buzzing until slowly, ever so slowly, they formed a pattern. The buzzing would do a big pulse with a diffrent pitch that sounded like speech. After some time she recognised the speech as her ghost. 'Hey.' The buzzing said. The titan's eyes grew wide and she looked at her ghost. He had his eye open and, judging by the way his eye was just showing the top half, He was smiling. "What did you do?" The titan asked him. And with out actually talking he said 'ghosts are somewhat telepathic. I am now tuned into your thoughts and can get a general idea of what you are thinking. As a bonus I can also talk to you in your mind.' The titan was dumbfounded and she just sat there for a second before saying "I have alot to learn, don't I?" Her ghost just laughed.

Casper watched this exchange between the titan and her ghost happily. He couldn't do what they could, but Austin had sworn that it didn't matter. Even though Casper wanted to have that connection with Austin, he felt happy for those two. Casper heard a violent rustling behind him and turned to see Austin sitting up and breathing heavily. "Another nightmare?" Casper asked while floating over to the warlock. In the dark Casper's eye was so bright that Austin needed to squint to not be blinded by his friend. "A memory this time" He told Casper. The ghost's back half spun a couple times as he heard Austin correct him. "What did you remember?" He asked. Austin told Casper about the dream he had, and about the name he remembered. "So you think that that titan is this 'Natalie'" Casper asked. Austin looked at the titan, still talking to her ghost and said "yes. I do." Casper also turned to look at the titan sitting on the Cliffside. "Should we take her back to camp?" He asked. Austin nodded "we can learn more there." Casper turned to look at Austin. "How?" "We go back to camp and we'll be safe. When we are safe, we can learn more." Ghost went and landed on Austin's shoulder. "How are we gonna make sure she dosent know where we are going? It's not like we have a bag or anything." Austin smiled and reached up to stroke Casper's shell. "Oh, I may have an idea"


	3. Natalie

Dawn. And the titan was still sitting on the cliff, watching the sun rise. She had figured out how to take off her gauntlets. Which was done similarly to her helmet. She twisted them until she heard a hiss of air escaping, then she simply pulled them off. It had felt wierd not having the weight of the metal on her arms, but she welcomed the opportunity to feel the grass around her, and the coolness of the night giving way to the warmth of day. She and her ghost talked most of the night, but a few hours ago he fell asleep. Or whatever counts as sleep for a ghost. The titan had her hands cupped gently around her ghost. She was slowly and gently sroking his shell with her thumb. She could feel the coolness of the metal, but she could also feel some warmth radiating from him. She also felt the tiniest hints of motion from what She assumed were his inner workings. She looked down at the small thing in her hands and smiled. She had been watching the forest below and thinking all night long. It was good to slow down after her walk here and her terrifying first moments of life. But soon that slowness would end.

Austin got up and walked over to the titan he now knew as Natalie. He spoke quietly as to not disturb the sleeping ghost in her hands. "Did you sleep at all last night?" Natalie smiled and awnsered "that depends on what counts as sleeping." A moment of silence passed between the two guardians before Austin said "so I had a vision last night. Actually I don't know if it was a vision or a memory, but I know your name now." The titan turned abruptly to look at Austin with a suprised look on her face. "What do you mean you know my name? I don't even know my name!" Her outburst woke up the ghost in her hands which then flew up and beside the titan. "What's all this about a name?" He asked, trying to get up to speed. Austin obliged by saying "I know her name" motioning to Natalie. The ghost looked at said titan and back at Austin "How?" Austin was gonna awnser until the titan quietly asked without looking at the warlock "What is it?" Austin and the ghost turned to look at her. "Natalie" Austin said "now I know where i got it from is kinda out there. So if you don't like it" Natalie cut him off by saying "Natalie." She said a few more times, testing it out. "I like it." Natalie said, smiling. Austin sat on the cliff edge with the titan. Together the guardians watched the sun rise on a new day.


	4. A camp for the exiles

After camp was broken down, the fire stamped out, and tracks sufficiently covered, the trio of guardians set out to the north. "Where are we off to now?" Natalie asked Austin, who was leading the way. "Well" Austin awnsered "we are going to our base camp." Natalie was going to say something until Nathan called from behind "I still say it's still a bad idea." Austin leaned in towards Natalie and said quietly "he dosent get a say. Now that he's taught me one too many of his tricks" they both chuckled and continued walking. 

On the way they only encountered two fallen patrols. One had what Austin called a servitors. It was a big floating purple ball that had an optic sensor that made it look like a giant flying eyeball. When it was dead austin took the time to tell Natalie about the fallen heiarchy. A lesson which Natalie tuned out. After a while the team turned to a clearing with what Natalie assumed was the camp. It was a pretty good assumption as there was a giant ship in the center of the clearing, tents and canvas covers spread around, and structures with tubes hooked up to the ship. Natalie was staring at the camp when Austin said "okay, first things first. We need to get you weapons and see if we have any titan armor laying around." At that Casper appeared and flew towards the ship in the center of the clearing. Austin took Natalie's shoulder and ushered her to a tent that was held up by a single pole. It's orange door flaps folded on itself leaving the interior exposed. When she got inside she saw three racks of weapons forming three walls around the guardians. Under the racks were boxes with even more guns on top of them. She stepped forward into the tent and looked back at Austin. She took off her helmet and set it gently on one of the boxes. Austin said from behind her "welcome to the armory."

Austin led Natalie out a back door of the armory tent and showed her a big open field with diffrent sizes and distances of targets. Natalie went downrange and looked at the targets. "let's get you a gun, shall we?" Austin called to her, and she walked back to the tent and ducked inside. Inside the tent, Austin took a gun off the wall. It had a greenish paint, a curved magazine coming out of the bottom of The middle of the gun. The scope on tope had an orange display in it as well as orange crosshairs. She took the gun from Austin and her arms dipped a bit because of the weight of the gun. She smiled a bit as she took her hand over the metal, feeling the mechanical potential of it. At Austin's gesturing, she took it to the range and instinctively shouldered it and took aim. At her trigger pull the gun fired four shots. It bucked in her grip as if it was trying to get free, she held in to the front and used the weight of her gauntlets to help keep it level. When she let off the trigger the gun had a small whisp of smoke on the barrel. She looked at the target she was aiming at, four direct hits. "Impressive" Austin said "let's see how you do with something a bit bigger." He vanished into the armory and returned with a huge gun. With the stock in the ground, it came up to her chest. It was blue with wires hanging off the side a bit before they went back in the gun. It had a giant magazine with a belt of ammunition going into the main body of the gun. She picked it off the ground and heaved it up into place on her shoulder. She aimed it down range and pulled the trigger. It bucked back into her shoulder so hard it hurt, and the gun to red to life with a "chakka chakka" sound. she kept the trigger held down. She had to pull the gun down to keep it lined up at the target. She kept the trigger held down. Electricity was arcing off the gun and hitting the titan's gauntlets. She still kept the trigger held down. A smile crept across her face as she got the hang of the gun's recoil. Eventually the belt ended and the gun stopped firing. Natalie lowered the gun slowly, still smiling. "I like this gun."

It only took a couple minutes for Natalie to find her guns. She picked the machine gun and a shotgun. She also found a titan's sword and picked that too. Her ghost dematerialised the sword and shotgun and Natalie magnetized the machine gun to her back. Austin and Nathan led her out into the range and stood facing her. "So what we about to teach you is something you would normally be taught at the tower. And since you would be shot down if you took our ship, here is a little crash course." Nathan informed. He took a few paces backward and Austin added "you are a titan, so you will have a diffrent one than us. Also I am obviously not a titan, so I can't teach you techniques or how to feel when you do it." With that Austin took a wide stance and suddenly drew his sword. He twirled the sword for added flair before thrusting it upward and igniting in a bright orange flash. Natalie had to blink a couple times before she saw Austin completely engulfed in flames! In his hands was a orange sword, also ablaze. But the thing that caught her attention the most were the two fire wings protruding from Austin's back. Austin leaped into the air and began hovering several feet off the ground. After Austin's display it was Nathan's turn. He held his arms out in front of him and lightning began to arc out from his body. The lightning began to gather in between his hand and he began to twirl it. As it twirled twice the lightning got longer until Nathan snapped his hand behind his back and a smaller blue flash happened. After Natalie blinked with a smile on her face she saw Nathan in a low, wide stance with a staff made of lightning braced against his back. Natalie smiled and looked at the pair of guardians. Natalie's ghost appeared and was smiling as well. Austin landed and sheathed his sword. As he did all the fire left him and he was back to normal, no burns or scrapes of any kind. Nathan took a more normal stance and his staff vanished, along with the lightning around him. Natalie began laughing quietly and said "that's cool!" Both of her tutors walked up to her and began telling how what to expect and how to control it. But beyond that, she was on her own. She closed her eyes and tried to find the light. She focused on her chest like Austin said, and tried to be calm, like Nathan said. Nothing. She opened her eyes and found the other two guardians watching her closely. She sighed and said "nothing" the two guardians walked off and talked quietly while she tried again.

She looked to her thoughts to try to find what they were talking about. She practiced her breathing, focused her thoughts, whatever she could to make anything happen. Eventually she began to get frustrated. She tried, and tried and couldn't feel a thing. She felt a heat in her chest during this time of frustration and when eventually she calmed herself down, it was still there. Curious, she focused on it and found she could manipulate it. Remembering what Austin said about solar light she tried to funnel it through her body. Just when she got it to her arms, she moved. Not willingly, but her arms moved to the right side of her body and made fists about a foot or two on top of one another. She could feel something very heavy in her hands and got exited. Her left leg lifted up and her hands moved over her head. Feeling control return to her she brought her leg down in a wide stance and her hands down to her side with something new, powerful, heavy, and oh so exiting in them. The last thing she experienced before opening her eyes was the heat bursting through her skin and a loud PING.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. This chapter is a bit late, but I have a good reason....a tornado. I'm serious, I had a tornado hit my town, and it's played merry hell to my schedule, so let me give y'all an extra long chapter to make up for it :)


	5. The last city

PING! Natalie opened her eyes and first saw Austin and Nathan staring at her. She looked down at herself and saw her holding a giant flaming hammer. It looked like a piece of rebar stabbed a block if concrete and she was holding it like a weapon. The hammer was glowing orange, but what caught her attention more was the fact that she was engulfed in flames! The fire coming off her didn't hurt, but left her feeling warm to her core. She couldn't contain her excitement, and began laughing. Austin and nathan straightened up and walked over to her. "That's cool." Austin said. Casper appeared and flew around Natalie, scanning her. "Okay" Nathan said "even more important than summoning the light is ending it. So try to gently pull it back." Natalie did as she was told and tried to contain the fire that had spread throughout her body. She found it easier than expected, and when she put the last of the fire in her chest, the flaming hammer disappeared and Natalie was left feeling strangely cold, but proud. Casper finished his scan and chuckled. "A natural sunbreaker." 

All three guardians were standing around and talking when Athena, Nathan's ghost, came to the group. "Hey, boys. I hate to break up team bonding time, but the city just got word of her revival" she was gesturing at Natalie "and is sending a fireteam to pick her up." All three heads turned to look at the bright green ghost. "Already?" Austin asked. Athena flew closer to Natalie and said "yep. I guess they caught wind of it from other guardians in the region." Natalie looked at Nathan and Austin. These two guardians that helped her learn and use things she never imagined, and said "where are they picking me up?" 

Athena and nathan led Natalie to the edge of the woods. Natalie saw a giant crumbled city and she gasped at the sheer scale of it. The giant skyscrapers leaning over the roads. The shops and stores still undamaged due to their small size. The roads themselves, broken and uneven, Piled high with rubble. Nathan walked up beside Natalie and said "the fireteam will be here soon. They will land somewhere on main street." He turned to leave, but at the last moment before vanishing into the dense forest he turned and said "in case you ever want to find us again, these are the ruins of new york." Nathan vanished into the trees. Natalie thought she heard Athena say something along the lines of "you fucking softy" and a chuckle from nathan. Natalie's ghost appeared and they looked at each other and walked down main street

The fireteam landed about half an hour later. They ushered Natalie aboard and took off. The ship they had resembled the ship at Austin and Nathan's camp. The only change was that it was red and had no gun under the nose. The fireteam tried to make conversation, but Natalie wasn't really in the mood. Partly because of how nervous she was. The ship landed and Natalie got out via the ramp at the back. The fireteam told her where to find her titan mentor. She thanked them and walked to the commons area. When she got there she saw a ton of guardians walking, running, and even dancing around. She looked for the silver and red of Zavala's armor. She couldn't find him by just looking at the guardians running around, so she dove into the clamor. She asked a couple guardians who all looked at a specific railing, made a sound of surprise and told her that they didn't know. She asked for almost an hour. Everybody followed the same pattern. Eventually she went to the rail everyone looked at and tried to find any clues. She put her hands on the rail and sighed when a robotic noise, simular to someone clearing their throat came from behind her. Natalie whipped around and saw a titan standing behind her with their helmet on. "I know this is a stupid question, but would you happen to be commander zavala?" Natalie asked awkwardly. The titan had a giant stature and Natalie felt very small next to them. The titan chuckled, and took off their helmet with the same hiss of air Natalie had heard so many times. The person, If she could call them that, was red with lines of blue going front to back. With two horns coming out of their forehead. When they spoke a female voice came out and her mouth glowed with an orange light. "No. I am only a wall sentry these days." She said, still half chuckling. "But I can bring you to him." Natalie's face brightened and she didn't skip a beat in saying "yes please!" The titan motioned for Natalie to follow, which natalie did. The titans walked for a bit until the other titan said "so why are you looking for Zavala anyway?" Natalie replied with "I am looking for him because I was told that's what you are supposed to do when you first get to the tower." The titan made a noise of surprise and chuckled "Ah! A kinderguardian! I should have guessed." She stopped and held out her hand "I am SRH-4, but you can call me Sarah." Natalie shook it and said "Natalie." Sarah made a face of confusion and asked "you have a name already?" The titan's continued walking, guardians and non-guardians alike moving out of their way as they approached. "Yes. I met a couple guardians that helped me when I got ressurected. One was a Hunter and one was a warlock." Sarah's voice got low as she stopped dead in her tracks. What did they look like?" She asked. Natalie continued walking for a few steps before she noticed Sarah stopped. "Well the warlock had red armor. He told me it was misled after super ancient warrior armor. The Hunter was like all other hunters here, but his helmet looked like a gas mask with yellow eyes." Sarah's fists clenched for a second until she asked in a completely normal, friendly tone "So where are they? They are friends of mine and they got stranded. We haven't been able to locate them." She began walking again.

That night a Hunter came up to a titan in silver and red. The titan turned from his usual railing and greeted the Hunter. "Jess. Thank you for coming." Jess stepped forward. "What is it, Zavala?" The titan in question turned back to his railing, placing his hands on it. "We now have sufficient Intel on the location for operation: reclaimer. The details are being sent to your ghost." Sure enough. Coordinates popped into Jess' head from her ghost. "Your orders are to capture. I want to talk to these guardians." Jess turned and began to walk away. Over her shoulder she called back to Zavala "consider it done." Zavala's hands tightened on the rail. No. He didn't think he would. The recapture of guardians Austin and Nathan was not going to be as simple as Jess thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little early!!!!! So I have a treat for the next chapter! This early chapter is so I can work on the next one more....so....
> 
> Cya later!  
> -uno fishy nino


	6. Located

A dropship class jump ship lowered it's ramp above the forest of old new York. Two hunters dropped to the ground with nearly a leaf crunched underfoot. A stark contrast from the titan, that slammed into the ground, leaving a small crater in the dirt. The fireteam swept the area as the ships engines faded away. They stayed a few seconds more, listening for any danger. One of the hunters stood up. The Hunter was a female with black under armor. The metal plate on her chest was colored blue, as well as the sides of her pants. She wore a hood with a big rectangular cape coming down to her knees and blocking her from view if you looked at her from behind. Her helmet was grey with white on the sides coming up to two eye holes. The helmet had a curved beak shape and made her look like a hawk. She twisted and took her helmet off. She was human. Her hair was silver but could be seen as blue when the light caught it right, it settled over one of her bright orange eyes.

She keeled down and spoke to her team, briefing them on their mission. "Our mission is to find a rogue fireteam and capture them." Her ghost, Wilbur appeared and pulled a hologram up of the two guardians. "This one" the Hunter said, pointing to the warlock "is a confirmed voidwalker, and dawnblade. Me and blaze" she motioned at the other Hunter. This one had black armor with hints of red. Her helmet was a solid red mask with no visible eye holes. She had a cape with the markings of an ace of spades. The Hunter continued "will take him if things get ugly. That leaves the Hunter to you, spud." The titan's armor was curvy and a very light green. His puldrons were not the normal walls of metal, but giant ridges with spikes on them. His helmet was complete metal exept for a slit where the eyes were. Spud spoke up "Jess. If Intel is to be believed, then we shouldent even try to talk to them. They murdered a ghost out of cold blood." Jess straightened And said "we are going to at least try to talk. If it makes you feel better, then you can pull a gun on them, but don't attack." With the briefing done, Wilbur disappeared and the fireteam moved to the waypoint set by each of their ghosts.

Natalie was sitting in the tower courtyard trying to eat some spicy ramen she got from a shop when Sarah came over and sat down. After. The usual greetings there was a short pause before Sarah said "so I owe you an apology." Natalie looked up from her bowl to the titan sitting next to her. Sarah continued "the guardians you were with. They actually aren't my friends. They are criminals." Natalie slowly put her bowl of noodles on the ground next to her. "What do you mean? They were really nice, they couldn't possibly be criminals." Sarah straightened and said "one is a hit man. He murdered guardians all across the system. He is the reason that my fireteam is dead. Permanently. He didn't get the chance to kill me. My ghost was too good." Sarah's head dropped and her voice lowered to a whimper "my Niko." Natalie was caught off guard by the sudden emotion coming from Sarah. Only for a second she didn't seem so robotic and alien. But Sarah's head jerked up and she continued. "Even when he became a guardian he was hunting me. He took a fallen weapon and modified it to work for him. He was going to shoot my ghost the next time we met. It would have looked like a fallen got her, would have been filed as another patrol casualty. But I saw him. I fought him, and he escaped. Next time I saw him he was on enceledus. He distracted my while his Hunter friend..." she trailed off. She reached into her collar behind her breastplate and pulled out a black fragment attached to a rope necklace. She held It out to Natalie. "This is what they do to ghosts, and friends, and family. The only reason they didn't kill you, is because they needed something from you. Something they need or want. They can't be reasoned with."

Austin emerged out of the ship carrying two mugs. He walked towards Nathan, who was at a campfire. "What did you get today?" Austin asked as he approached. Without looking back Nathan awnsered "a couple rabbits. We need to do a supply run before too long." Austin knelt at the fire and placed the cups near the edge. "Well, if everything goes to plan we will have one in the next day or two." While Austin was fiddling with the mugs, trying to partly bury them so they'll be less likley to tip over, he saw movement in the forest. He tried to find the source, he stayed very still. Nathan noticed and quietly asked "What is it?" Austin saw a flash of blue from the forest. An explosion rocked the trees and something rocketed towards them. "Move!" Austin yelled as he dived back and grabbed Nathan before blinking away as the projectile exploded mere feet away from where they were.

"What could they possibly need from me?" Natalie was standing now. Sarah was still sitting. "I don't know. Maybe they need information. Maybe they wanted to corrupt you, and put you in the city as a spy. Maybe they just wanted another member." Natalie was pacing back and forth in front of Sarah "no. No. This dosent make any sense. They were nice! They gave me this gun" she motioned to the giant machine gun magnitised to her back. Sarah shifted to get a look at it, and shifted back when she didn't see it as a danger. Natalie continued "and they helped me with my abilities as a guardian." Now it was Sarah's turn to stand up. "What? Did they help you use your super?" Natalie was taken aback by the sudden change in Sarah's posture. "Yeah" she stuttered out "they helped me use my giant hammer." Sarah backed up a couple steps. "Oh no. No no no. Natalie, this is worse than I thought." Natalie made a face of confusion. Sarah saw it and informed her. "I know what they want from you."

The hunters watched spud land with a giant boom. They jumped to the ground and rushed into the clearing, guns drawn. Each guardian watching for movement. Jess summoned what little void light she had control over and pressed a button on her helmet. The helmet focused the void light and the eye holes glowed yellow. She could see through walls, and saw 2 guardians in a tent. "Orange tent to the right" she called out to her team. The fireteam walked to the tent until Jess saw one target vanish. She signaled her team to stop when a voice asked from behind her "who are you? Why do you attack us?" Jess turned and saw a warlock, pointing a hand cannon at her. She lowered her gun but kept it ready, just in case. "We are tasked with bringing you to the tower. I assume you are Austin?" Austin nodded, and said in return "you only awnsered one of my questions." Jess smirked under her helmet. "I am Jess, this Hunter here, is blaze, and the titan is Spud." Austin would have smiled at the ridiculousness of theur names if the situation was different. Casper spoke up from his dematerialised state in Austin's helmet. "Getting a feed from Athena. Putting it on your HUD" austin saw multiple lines of writing appear beside each opposing guardian, Discribing weapons, subclass, and abilities. Austin finally asked the question that he was dreading. "What happens if we refuse?" Jess raised her hand cannon to point it at Austin. "Then we are authorised to take you in by force." Austin thought for a second. Before finally saying "you don't understand the whole story, do you? We can't go with you." The opposing guardians stiffened and Jess said. "Then I guess we have to force you." Both hunter's hands shot up and a blast of solar light burst forth from their guns.

Sarah was pacing back and forth in the tower courtyard. "It makes sense! They want to get more powerful, so how do they get more light? Guardians! New Guardians!" Natalie had her hands up and backed away from Sarah a couple steps "I'm not sure I follow." Sarah put a hand on Natalie's shoulder. "At least one of them can absorb guardians light. If they do that enough, they can become so powerful, we can't stop them. I need zavala" Sarah ran off. But turned back only when she was out of sight. She didn't know If Natalie bought it. She would have to show her, for Sarah's stories to be cemented in her mind.

Austin used the light to push the hunters' guns away just as they fired. He blinked towards the closest enemy, which was Jess. Austin again used the light to push her gun down, then when she brought it up, he did the same to her wrists, causing her to drop her flaming hand cannon. Austin spun and forced Jess back with a blast from his palm. It was blaze's turn to fire and Austin blinked backward into cover behind a rock. He reviewed the info sent to him by Athena. Jess had a hand cannon and shotgun, spud had an auto rifle and fusion rifle, And finally blaze had a bow and sidearm. Austin ejected the chamber if his hand cannon and checked the ammo. Satisfied with the ammo count, he blinked away from his cover. He fired four shots at the most dangerous threat: the titan. Two shots hit his shoulder, but the titan just shrugged off the damage and sprayed bullets at Austin. The warlock dipped into the void and used it to rapidly blink side to side until he was behind one of the camps refueling stations. He ejected the chamber and inserted a new cartridge into the gun. "Nathan" he said into his helmet radio "if you are gonna do something, now's the time."

Jess and the rest of her fireteam hadn't even taken cover yet. Spud had been doing most of the shooting for now. Blaze was working on sneaking behind the warlocks cover while he was pinned down. Jess, however, was looking for the Hunter. She had lost her grip on the void since the battle began, so she was carefully sweeping all tents and corners she could find. She eventually got to the ship and holstered her hand cannon for her shotgun, she pilled a lever on the side of the ship and waited for the ramp to lower. She checked on how her team was doing. Spud was still pinning down Austin, who was now firing at blaze. Jess would have to help them as soon as possible. The ramp lowered and Jess stepped on. She saw the door to the cockpit open and someone step out. He was definitely a Hunter. But he had two massive guns at his side. He threw one over his shoulder and magnetized it to his back. "Now, I bet you expect me to say some speech about how this is all a big misunderstanding. Or say some stupid pun before jumping into the fight. So I feel obligated to warn you." The Hunter heaved the second weapon onto his shoulder and pointed it at Jess "I'm all out of puns." There was a woosh of air and Jess used the light to catapult her out of the ship and roll back on her feet. The blast from the rocket launched her away from the ship as Nathan came walking out sporting a white gun with a side grip. It's barrel was actually 7 rotating ones. Jess took a smoke grenade out of one of her pouches and let it detonate in her hand, making her vanish from sight.

Austin heard the boom and saw the bullets stop and took his chance. He blinked out from his cover at the titan and unsheathed his sword. Spud threw a punch, but Austin blocked it with his sword and used the momentum to slide under the titan and slice in between armor plates on the back of his knee. With the titan's mobility impaired for the moment, Austin focused on the other hunter. He saw movement from behind a tree in the forest, so he blinked around it, hand cannon drawn. Nothing was there. He saw more movement in the clearing of camp so he rushed over. Still nothing was there. He listened, obviously this Hunter didn't like to be seen. He heard quick footsteps coming up behind him so he quickly took his sword out and turned, just in time to block a strike from two swords. Blaze was covered from head to toe in void. She had two purple swords connected to Austin's and she made everything around her cold. Austin used the blade guard on his sword to push blaze's swords down. Austin then rolled over his Hunter advarsary and summoned the solar light. His sword became engulfed in flames, and he blocked another slice from blaze when he turned around. The Hunter then hopped backwards and vanished from sight. Austin heard a gun spinning up and a massive low buzzing. He saw Nathan firing a large gun at spud while the titan was behind a white transparent wall. Spud's ghost healed his leg and the titan summoned the light with a PING. Nathan lept away and the titan holding the massive hammer charged at Austin. Solar light clashed as Austin tried to deflect Spud's swings. Trying to block them entirely would be suicide, so austin resorted to knocking them off course. After a few seconds of fighting spud, blaze and Jess appeared. Blaze was still surrounded by the void, and Jess was engulfed in flames with a hand cannon in her hand. "Nathan!" Austin called into his helmet. All three guardians attacked. Austin blocked blaze, and blinked behind spud before spud elbows him to the face. Austin stumbled back and saw Jess taking aim. He blinked towards Jess and blasted her off her feet with a blast from his palm. Austin then used the light to slam Jess down and throw her at spud. Spud caught Jess and blaze lunged at austin. Three swords locked and the two guardians wouldent let the other go. Austin saw out of the corner of his eye the red glare of a scope. The crack of a rifle sounded and blaze jerked to the side and Austin took action

spud helped Jess get to her feet when they heard the crack of a sniper rifle. They both ducked on instinct, but Jess saw that blaze got hit. Austin heaved and threw her swords off his own and put a hand over her wound. Blaze flashed a bluish white, and her super vanished. Austin spun behind blaze and Jess saw Austin's sword push through her chest. Austin pulled his sword out of blaze's corpse and let it fall to the ground. Spud rushed at Austin, and brought his hammer down in an overhead swing. Austin brought his arm up to block the blow and a sound of metal hitting metal sounded through the clearing. Jess looked again, and saw that spud's hammer was floating about an inch above Austin's arm. Solar light protruded out of Austin's arm and began to spiral in a circle until it became a hardened shield, resembling a sentinal shield that titans had. Austin heaved his shield up, and sliced spud's chest. Austin kicked over spuds body and looked at Jess. Jess slowly backed away, and looked at the bodies of her team. Blaze's ghost was floating around blaze's body, scanning it. Jess felt something she hadent felt in a long time: fear. Austin's ghost appeared and Austin bent down and touched blaze's ghost. Austin's shield vanished and blaze's ghost finally opened and began the revival process. Austin's ghost said. "Like we told you. You don't know the whole story" Austin's ghost was going to say more, but it was cut off by Jess quickdrawing and shooting an underbarrel gadget on her hand cannon at Austin's ghost. The small circle hit Casper and shocked him. Casper fell from the sky and an unusually stealthy spud caught him. And transmitted out with blaze in tow. Austin blinked towards Jess and impaled her with his sword.

Austin cast Jess' body aside, and noticed the other two bodies were gone. "Casper, try to locate their ship and put a marker on it." When Casper didn't respond Austin tried again. "Casper? You there?" Austin searched the clearing for his ghost when he saw Nathan running up to him. Nathan told Austin in between breaths "they took him. They have Casper." Austin took a step backwards, as if he had been struck. He took another look at the body of Jess and her ghost that had recently appeared. "Nathan" he said in a low, angry growl "get the ship ready. We need some awnsers."


	7. Ways to get intel

Jess was finally revived with a gasp. She bolted upright and looked at her surroundings. She could instantly tell from the folded chairs on the walls that she was in a guardian dropship. She stood and was about to open the door to the cockpit until she noticed something: The door was a diffrent color. With a feeling of dread rising in her chest, she looked back at the room she was in. The walls were not the same as her fireteam's ship. There were no damaged seats that would tell of this being a titan's ship. She turned to her ghost, Wilbur, who was still floating in the center of the room. "What happened?" Wilbur recounted his view of the story. When Jess died he tried to revive her. Only for the warlock to touch him and take all of Jess' light from his core. In his confusion it was easy for both of them to take Wilbur and Jess onto their ship. Wilbur finished his short summary of the events with "they only just came back and gave your light back. I didn't know what to do, so I revived you." Jess held out her hand and Wilbur flew over to it. "You did good, but now we have to find a way out of here." Wilbur dissapeared and Jess looked once more at her surroundings. There were some chairs. Not very useful. The main ramp could get her out, but it's too high profile if she was to get away. She kept looking and finally, a door! A side door was in front of the right row of folded chairs. She ran to it and grabbed the handle when she heard a voice come from over her shoulder. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Jess whirled around to find Austin leaning against the door frame to the cockpit "why? Do you have a tracker on my ghost?" Jess spat back. Austin remained unaffected by Jess' hostility and just slowly grabbed onto a handle beside the door. "No, it's because you wouldn't survive long out there." Jess smirked under her helmet "how about we find out, then." Jess grabbed the door and threw it open. The last thing she saw was the void of space before explosive decompression threw her mangled body out the door.

Austin quickly grabbed the handle with his other hand when Jess went for the door. The decompression threw him against the wall and set him spinning in the now zero-gravity environment. The only sound he heard was his suit supplying him with oxygen every couple of seconds. He looked down and saw one of his hands bent at an odd angle. "Fuck!" He yelled into his helmet, the sound startlingly loud in the silence of the ship. He reached out his non-broken hand and stopped his spin. He took a deep breath and manually pressed a button on the side of his helmet. "Nathan. We have a situation in the cargo bay. Jess opened the door, her ghost should be due any second now." As if on cue Jess' ghost appeared in the middle of the room and opened. Austin let off the button and pushed off the wall and floated to the open door. He looked out and suddenly felt extremely small. It was one thing viewing space from behind glass, but a whole other story to be mere inches away from falling into its depths. Austin grabbed the handle of the door and pushed off the wall. The door shut and Austin caught himself on a handle near a panel of buttons. After a few button pushes, Austin began to feel weight again. He landed on his feet and heard the hiss of the ship putting air back in fade in. First it sounded very far away, then it slowly became more clear. When the ship was done compressing, Jess appeared in the room, gasping to life. Austin went to the door to the cockpit and knocked on it with his good arm. "Told you so"

Nathan and Athena had come in from the cockpit to check on Austin. Jess and Austin were sitting on opposite walls, looking at each other. Austin had his helmet off and jess got a look at his face. He was holding his broken hand out to Athena who was scanning it. "Well, that's all I can do." She told him "I reset it, but I can't heal it. Only Casper can do that." Austin thanked her and she and Nathan returned to the cockpit. Silence enveloped the room as Austin and Jess sat looking at each other. Finally austin got up and walked to a white box on the wall saying "okay, lets start over." He took the box off the wall and walked back to his spot across from Jess. "This time without us getting into a fight and you opening a door into space and breaking my hand." He opened the box and took out two braces. He began tying them to his arm. "My name is Austin, but you probably knew that. Those two in there are Nathan and Athena. Again, most likely prior knowledge." He used his teeth to help finish tying one of the knots. "And if I remember correctly, your name is Jess, right?" Jess slowly nodded. Austin continued "and does your little light have a name?" Jess quietly awnsered "wilbur" "wilbur" Austin repeated "see? Introductions done! See how easy that..." Jess cut him off "What do you want from me?" She asked. Austin looked at her, confused Jess continued "if you didn't need anything from me, I wouldn't be here." Austin dropped his head, and said "when your fireteam left, they took something from me. I want it back." Jess looked Austin in his eyes and said "yes, your ghost. I know." Austin took a sling from the pack and tightened it on his chest. "Where is he?" Austin asked. Jess didn't awnser. Austin gently lowered his arm into the sling with a soft groan. "Please" he pleaded. "I can't lose him." Jess just watched the warlock. Austin continued "he's obviously at the city. But I just need to know where." Jess remained silent. Austin finally stood and said "it was worth a try. We need to do a supply run, but since you are here, we can't land the ship and risk you running off." Austin walked back into the cockpit leaving Jess to think to herself and Wilbur.

Casper didn't know what happened. One moment he was floating next to Austin, and the next he was being placed in a sort of cage with this wierd thing preventing him from phasing. When they got to the tower, spud and blaze gave the cage to zavala. Who then put it in a dark room. Casper couldn't see anything in the room. The only light came from the traveler that lit up only the table he was on. The window was too high to see anything other than a part of it, even so, Casper smiled. Seeing the traveler there comforted him. A door opened and light streamed in. Casper turned and was ready to say something until he saw who it was. He would have much proffered the grim reaper himself than the person standing at the door. "Hello, casper." The figure said. "Sarah." Casper replied quietly. Sarah walked up to the cage. And knelt down to eye level with Casper. "Where's austin?" She asked. Casper slowly backed away from the exo as far as he could. "Gone. He would have moved by now. I don't know where he is." Sarah put her hands on the table and rested her head on them. "Yes you do. All ghosts are linked mentally to their guardians." Casper thought. Sarah didn't know he wasn't linked to Austin, that could be good, but it could also be very bad. "Ghosts are also protective of their guardians. You'd just kill him." He told Sarah defiantly. Sarah just stood. "No. I won't kill him. I want to bring him to his lowest. To break him. That means tearing away everything he holds dear. And if that means that I'll have to find him myself after this building gets destroyed during a lightning storm, so be it." Casper sunk in the air a bit. "Why? Why are you doing this?" Sarah turned to face Casper. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I just wanted to avenge my family, but then Niko. He killed my ghost, all I do now is walk the wall. Every second of every day! Walk the wall looking at the same thing, seeing nothing!" She was shouting now. She suddenly got very quiet and crouched again, returning to Casper's eye level. "So I began thinking. Austin ruined my life. So i thought, why not ruin his? Why not take everything away from him and see him broken? After all, there is more than one way to snuff out a light." Sarah stood and walked to the open door. "So you and me have some catching up to do." She closed the door, the only light in the room was the blue light coming from her fists, lighting up her body. "And please, I want all the little details" Casper's screams could be heard from the hallway.


	8. Supplies and history

Jess watched from a corner of the ship as Nathan and Austin put on civilian clothes. Nathan had on grey pants with a yellow vest. He had on a grey long sleeve shirt that was a lighter color than his pants. Austin had on all grey, the same color as Nathan's pants, with a grey hat. The patch on his jacket stated that he was a tower guard. "Okay" Nathan said when he was finished "a couple ground rules: don't destroy the ship is the main one." He paused for a moment. "Come to think of it, there really are no more rules." He asked Austin if he was ready and after Austin awnsered in the affermative, they dissapeared from the ship. Jess stood there for a few moments, waiting, until she finally decided to look in the cockpit. Inside she found the usual two seats and controls. She sat in the co-pilot seat. "Okay wilbur" she said as the ghost in question appeared beside her. "What are our options?" Wilbur floated over the instrument panels. "Navagation is locked, Only their ghosts can open it. All I've got is their personal records." Jess sat back in the seat for a moment. "Open it." Wilbur turned to face Jess "What?" He asked. "Open it" Jess repeated "if we are going to be here a while, why not learn more about our captors?" Wilbur could not refuse the logic, but there was something about going through personal files that didn't make him feel right, and he said so. After some pestering from Jess, Wilbur finally gave in. "It looks like the first one is from two months ago." He told Jess. The Hunter told Wilbur to open it and a voice played. It was Austin's voice, in a tone Jess couldn't recognise "we just got back from the tower" it said through the console. "Since I'm making these you can probably guess what happened. After enceledus, we took Nathan's ship back to the city. When we landed, every guardian looked at us and raised their guns. Zavala told us we were under arrest, and the rest is history. We had to fight out of there. Eventually I had to nova bomb the whole plaza. I hope no civillians were caught in the blast. However, it bought us time to jump over the edge. We didn't survive the fall, but our ghosts brought us back and we flew out of there. Now we are trying to find a place to camp. Nathan says that it was Sarah that got the tower on her side, but I don't believe she did. She is dangerous now, I know that. I wish we didn't have to kill Niko, but it was the only way. That's it, casper." The voice log ended, and Jess sat there, bewildered. After a few seconds, Jess said in a low tone "they could be biased in their view of the world." Wilbur turned to Jess and said "well, we have two months worth of voice logs to go through."

Natalie had been thinking on what Sarah had said. She had asked Zavala if she could look for Austin and Nathan. Zavala Said he would have to talk to ikora about it. So now she was just walking around the last city without her helmet or gauntlets. She was broken out of her thoughts when she came to a wall. Finding that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going, went down a side alley into a market street. Dispite all the people walking up and down the street, Natalie got through it with no problem, as everyone moved out of the way for her. She was looking for the tower, her landmark to find her way back, when she heard shouting. "I don't care what you say! I am not selling you anything!" Curious, she followed the one sided shouting until she came upon a stall with three men at it. One was behind the counter, and two were on the other side, with three sizeable glowing blue bricks of glimmer on their side of the table. She leaned on a wall near them and eavesdropped on their conversation. The one of the buyers, dressed in all grey with a grey hat spoke quietly "please, man. We need these supplies." The buyer continued to scream "No! I will not sell to the likes of you!" The other buyer, in an orange vest and grey pants spoke up. "We are offering you three times what it's worth. What will it take for you to sell to us? You are the only person here that sells these supplies." Natalie had heard enough and she walked over to the stall. "Hello there!" She called to the seller. Both buyers had a quick look of astonishment and fear. Natalie didn't pay attention to it, as she got those looks all the time. The seller turned his attention to her "Ah! A guardian! Please, come in. See anything you like?" Natalie smiled a half smile and told him "what were these two getting?" The buyers both threw up their hands in protest, but knew better than to challenge a guardian. The seller informed her "just some supplies. Fuel, food, water, and ammo. That sort of thing." Natalie replied "then I'll take it." She put a brick of glimmer on the table and the buyers made sounds of frustration. And gathered their glimmer and made a move to leave. "Hold on, guys." Natalie called over her shoulder at them, And they stopped. The seller asked her "what is your ships transmat code?" Natalie loved the look on his face when she asked the two buyers the same question.

After Natalie forced the seller to give the buyers the supplies she bought, the three started walking down the street together. The buyer in all grey, and Natalie saw that he had a sling on his left arm, said "Thank you so much, guardian..." Natalie got the hint and awnsered "Natalie, And you two are?" The buyer in grey awnsered "um, Ryan. And this one here is Nate." Natalie looked at the two. Nate was an awoken. So he had light blue skin, and orange hair. His piercing yellow eyes were hard to read, but Natalie managed. Ryan, on the other hand, was human. He had Carmel colored skin, half neat, half messy hair, his brown eyes were constantly searching everywhere. The trio were walking down the street when a titan and a Hunter passed them, arguing. Natalie looked at them when they passed and heard a snippet of their argument "I told you I already checked new york!" The Hunter yelled at the titan. The titan responded with "Then where else could she be!" After that they were out of earshot. Natalie looked at nate and Ryan. They both had their heads down and were avoiding eye contact. Natalie thought about asking about it, but refrained. A few more steps and another titan rounded the corner. Natalie saw both civilians beside her freeze. The red exo asked Natalie "hey, Natalie. You haven't happened to see a hunter and a titan around here, would you?" Natalie smiled and replied "Hello, Sarah. Yes, they went back that way" she pointed down the alley and Sarah thanked her. Natalie kept walking until she heard Sarah call back from behind her "hey, Austin!" You might want to get that arm looked at."

Austin whirled around. Just in time to see a void shield hurtling towards him. He blinked past it and used the light to grab it and sling it back at Sarah, who blocked it with her next shield. Sarah just put two fingers to her ear and said "I found them. They are in the city, section 45." Sarah got into a defensive stance with her shield. Austin made a move to leave when he heard a ping and saw a flaming hammer flying at his face. He blinked away, but Nathan, now in full armor blocked it with his arc staff. Sarah's helmet appeared on her head, and guardians on sparrows rode up behind her. Natalie broke her hammer free and tried to hit Nathan, who flipped away from it. The guardians behind Sarah got off their sparrows and began firing their weapons. "Run!" Nathan said to Austin "now! We can't fight them!" Both guardians turned and fled. Sarah and Natalie stayed while the other guardians persued. Austin didn't have a gun. He left it back on the ship because civilians didn't carry any. Now he was kicking himself for leaving it as he pushed through the crowded streets. He didn't get far before a Hunter tackled him. Austin growled, and blinked above the Hunter. In the crowded markets, he brought down a lot of people on top of the Hunter with him. Somehow, Austin got a hold of the Hunter and hoisted him to his knees. Austin grabbed the hunters knife and drove it into his neck. Austin then grabbed the hunter's pistol and fired two shots into the air. All the civilians in the area fled, and Austin could see the rest of his pursuers. He checked to see if the hunter's ghost appeared and continued on. Eventually the streets became crowded again. Austin finally decided to blink up to the rooftops. Unfortunately his pursuers also had the same idea. With no cover, no escape route, and only a sidearm to defend himself, he was out of options. He looked back and counted his attackers. He saw five guardians on his tail, two of which were fellow warlocks. His mind made up, he slid to a stop and blinked towards the group. Bad choice. With the amount of bullets that ripped through his body, Austin was suprised he was still alive. The group of guardians ran up to his prone body, and aimed weapons. Austin had given up when he felt some void light in his chest. He summoned a grenade. The guardians above him lowered their guns and dove away, But Austin had other plans. He crushed the grenade in his hand. The void light surged into his body, restoring it. All the bullet wounds were mended, bones were healed, and his hand was restored. He blinked to his feet just in time to see the guardians scrambling to get up. He summoned all the void he possessed and funneled it into his hand. He pushed it out of his body in a cataclysm that blew the guardians off the roof. Austin used the light to sling three of the mini nova bombs at his persuers. But with the fourth one he pulled it to him and funneled it's void energy through his whole body. He vanished for a moment and reappeared in nova warp. He used it only to continue onward, however, by blinking rapidly. After a few minutes he saw Nathan on a rooftop shooting at the guardians that followed him. Austin caught up, and asked him "so what's the plan?" They both ducked down as more tracer fire barely missed them. "The plan is" Nathan replied in between shots "that we transmit out of here. The ship is locking on to us, but it may take about thirty seconds." Austin nodded and took off his sling.and threw it behind him. Nathan looked at his newly healed arm and Austin said "space magic stuff. Remind me to tell you about it later." More shots cane from the street, and Austin and Nathan returned fire. The firefight continued with neither side gaining a foothold. Once when hunters tried to flank, Nathan used the solar light and gunned them all down. Finally, when all their ammo was almost expended, Austin heard Nathan dissapear. After a couple more seconds, the world around him shifted and folded until he was inside their ship.

Jess heard Austin and Nathan return, but she was thinking about the voice logs she heard so much she didn't notice Nathan come in and sit down at the controls. "Normaly, I would kick you out of here, but I know that sometimes you need to look at the stars." Nathan sat back in his chair and stared up through the ship's canopy. "Also, it dosent look like you messed with anything, so that helps." Jess stood up and opened the door to see an empty room "where's austin?" She asked Nathan. Nathan called over his shoulder "on the roof." 

Austin sat on the top of the ship in his armor. Looking out on the vastness of space and the earth above him. He had his feet hooked under some handholds so he wouldn't float away. It was quiet. No matter what happened, it was always completely silent. He felt vibrations in the ship and looked to see Jess in her hawk-like helmet clumsily holding on to one of the handrails on the side of the ship. Austin chuckled to himself and used the light to bring her over to him. She squirmed a bit at first, a proper reaction to being pulled out into space, Austin thought. He brought Jess slowly towards him. Austin stoped her with a hand to her shoulder. He then helped her maneuver to het her feet under the handhold. With some pressing of arm-mounted suit controls Austin opened a radio link with Jess. To test it out he said "we saw your fireteam." Jess jumped when he said that, so he knew it worked. After a couple seconds Jess said back "really?" Austin nodded "they are looking for you." Silence enveloped the pair again. After a few seconds Austin said "i assume Wilbur told you how I captured you?" Jess nodded slowly. Austin continued "I felt that you have a little void light in you. A guardian having even a semblance of all three elements is extremely rare." Jess said nothing for a time. When she finally did speak it was with a low tone. "I never was really in tune with the void. At most I can summon a little bit of it to help me in some way. My mentor was an exo. His name was GLX-21. He was assigned as my mentor after he helped Wilbur find me. His ghost got killed on the moon. The last time I saw him, was in the reef. He had been shot. I couldn't save him." Jess wrapped her arms around herself. "He tried to train me in the void, but I never got past the tiniest of whispers of it. I am much better in solar and arc light." Seeing her body language, Austin decided to change the subject. "What is our reputation in the tower?" Jess chuckled lightly. "What? You're the one that made it. You don't know?" It was Austin's turn to speak quietly now "Like I've been saying, You don't know the whole story." Jess shook her head but humored austin "you are exiles and criminals. On the run after killing a ghost and attacking a fireream member in cold blood, as well as executing a civilian" If austin had his helmet off Jess would've seen him wince. Jess continued "however, I did go through your personal logs. It seems that either you or Sarah have a drasticly perverted view of the world, and I know Sarah better." Austin looked Jess in her helmet's glowing eyes. "No. You haven't even begun to know her better than me." With that Austin cut the radio link and spacewalked to the ships airlock. Jess just sat there on the ships roof, watching as the sun peeked out from behind the earth.


	9. An old friend

Casper was under some boxes at the back of the room. Sarah had made a little game with him. She had discarded the cage yesterday, and now she would stalk Casper like a predator for each one of their "talks" as she called them. Casper had found quick that going for the door was a mistake. The first few times Sarah had swatted him out of the air like one would a fly. Casper also learned to close his eye or else the glow would betray his position. He heard the door open and he closed his eye. He heard footsteps slowly go around the room. They stopped outside his box and Casper had to steady his nerves to keep him from bolting. The footsteps returned, slower than before. And Casper thought he was safe until his world of darkness got replaced with a bright flash of light and pain as he was thrown against the wall. He blinked and looked up at the titan before him. Sarah picked him up and threw him unceremoniously on the table at the center of the room. "Pretty good" she said going to pick up some of her tools on a smaller table to the side "but nothing a good flashbang can't fix." Casper tried to float up, but Sarah turned a dial on her wrist and a constant debilitating pain shot through the ghost on the table. Sarah continued her monologue "face it, it's been two days. Austin abandoned you. Just tell me where he is and the pain will stop." She turned the dial again and the pain did, in fact, stop. "No matter how pain filled it is" Casper breathed "I value my life." He floated up a few inches "And Austin values it as well." Casper closed his eye for a moment, bracing for what was to come. Then opened it to look at Sarah and defiantly challenged "Did you value Niko's?" Sarah's frown deepened as she turned the dial all the way and made the robot in front of her scream.

Natalie was standing in front of her vanguard mentor. Zavala was leaning back in his usual spot against the rail. He had his pointer finger and thumb on the bridge of his nose, and his eyes were closed, lost in thought. "You have put me in a difficult position, Natalie." He said. "On one hand, we don't have anyone more suited for hunting down the fugitives, besides Sarah. Yet, me and ikora both agree that letting them turn you to their cause would be" he paused for a moment "problematic, at best." He crossed his arms at the titan standing before him "do you see where I am coming from?" Natalie awnsered "yes sir, I do. But I think that it is in your best interest to at least let me try. What if this is all a big misunderstanding?" Zavala looked her straight in the eye "and what if it isn't?" Natalie didn't have an answer. She racked her brain for a solution, but none came to mind. "So what would you have me do?" Zavala continued "Let a young guardian go alone and get turned against us? Or have her stay here, and continue her training." Something about that sentence made Natalie have an idea. "What if I wasn't alone?" Zavala's face perked with interest and Natalie kept going "you are worried about me going alone. What if I was in a fireteam? Under supervision by them. That way you have the security you need, as well as me learning more, and I get to go talk with Nathan and Austin. Zavala was quiet for some time. Natalie stood there, going over her argument with her ghost in her mind. She was caught off guard by Zavala speaking "do you have a fireteam in mind?" Natalie thought for a second and then replied "No, sir." Zavala just looked up at Natalie and said "good. I do." He turned around to look at the city when his ghost appeared Zavala spoke to it "contact guardians Blaze and Spud and have them meet with me as soon as possible." A moment of silence passed before he told Natalie over his shoulder "you are dismissed"

Austin was sitting in the ships cargo bay across from Jess. Both guardians had their helmets beside them, and austin was absently cleaning his gun. The ship was quiet except for the engines as Nathan steered them towards their destination. After a while Austin picked up a large bundle and tossed it across the room at Jess. She caught it without looking, gave Austin a questioning look, then opened it. Inside was her hand cannon, shotgun, sword, and knife. "Why did you give me these back?" Austin looked up and said "Why not? If you run away when we land, we don't lose anything like base location, and you aren't giving any information. if you stay, i could use the extra guns, and if you try to kill me" he chuckled a bit "well, we've both seen how that goes." The ship was quiet again except for the occasional click and slide of Austin dismantling his gun. "Why are you like this?" Jess asked "you are being too nice for how your reputation is. And don't say 'you don't know the whole story' just tell me the whole story." Austin looked up at Jess and took a deep breath. "Okay. I was ressurected in old new York. After my ghost found me, we went for a skywatch building. Sarah crashed her ship there, and we got back to the tower in this very ship. A few weeks later I snuck out of the tower to try to find some of my past as this" he pointed to his ring "was not cutting it for me. On the way there, I was intercepted by a cabal carrier and it's escorts. I took down most of them, but my ship was destroyed. It was there that I met two civilian hostages. At this point Nathan and Sarah had found out that I was a" He paused for a moment "sharpshooter in my past life. And Sarah had her fireteam killed by human weapons. So without any links at all, she went on a revenge path for me. Me and Casper had stolen a cabal transport that had malfunctioned and sent us to enceledus. I didn't want Hannah to die. I was going to go back, but Sarah found us. She was going to kill Casper, so Nathan" he trailed off. "Sarah escaped, we get literally killed out of the city, and two months later here we are." The ship was quiet once more. Jess quietly said "that's not what Sarah said" Austin just nodded and said "thought not"

after a few more minutes of flying Austin and Jess were dropping to the ground in front of a half destroyed building. Austin put two fingers to his ear "you sure you don't want to came with us, Nathan?" He asked into his radio. He heard a voice chirp back through as he swept the area with his scout rifle. "No, thank you, I have something I want to check out." The ship above the duo of guardians on the ground rocketed off into the atmosphere, leaving them on the ground in silence. After a few moments Austin got up and walked forward, and Jess followed. "So what are we doing here? She asked once they were in the building "there is a console on one of the floors. I want to see it." Jess nodded and they continued on. Two flights of stairs later they were on the third floor. Austin saw a patrol of a fallen captain and three dregs. He held up four fingers to Jess while they were hidden in the stairwell, and slowly crept up behind the closest dreg. Austin put his rifle up to the back of its head and fired. The dreg fell forward and the rest of its group screeched. Austin used the confusion to use a blast from his palm to take down the captain's shields. Then using the light, Austin picked up the captain, flung it over his head, and slammed it down on its own neck, breaking it. He turned to the other dregs but jumped as two massive gunshots hit both of their heads and dropped them. Austin looked at Jess as she lowered her hand cannon. She holstered it and walked past Austin over the fallen bodies. "You know" Austin said "I thought you would have run away by now." Jess looked in a office room and awnsered "I don't have anywhere else to go. And it seems that you don't want to kill me or Wilbur. For now at least." Austin nodded and continued. On one part of the floor, they came to a severely damaged room. There were burn marks, and rubble everywhere. Austin looked and saw a functioning console. "Got it." He said to jess "can you clear the next floors? I don't want uninvited guests." Jess agreed, and went to the stairs.

Austin looked through the console. It was connected to the vanguard deployment database. Austin clicked a few buttons and brought it up. He saw a list of guardians in two columns. One was red and one was blue. The red names all had deceased next to them. There were alot if guardians in the red column. At a quick count Austin's low guess was fifty kills. He shook his head, disgusted. He scrolled down the list of live until he came to a name: SRH-4. He pressed it, and it pulled up three pictures. One was of Sarah, and the other two were red with a DECEASED in the middle. Austin backed out of the menu and continued scrolling. He scrolled and looked at the names of his killed until he saw a name. A name he recognised. A name he dreaded to see on there. He quickly backed out of the kills menu and looked for anything else having to do with the name. He didn't find anything except mission data. He was turning off the terminal when he heard Jess yell "hey!" From behind him. Austin whirled around to see Jess throwing a knife at him. Austin sidestepped the knife and went to grab the knife with the light but was confused when he didn't see it. He looked back towards Jess and saw the knife floating in air. Looking at it more he saw a blue substance coating the top half of the blade. Austin watched as from the blade a fallen vandal uncloaked and fell to the ground, dead. "Im guessing the knife wasn't for me?" He asked, his heart racing. "No" Jess replied "but the fallen was" she knelt to examine the fallen. "Its wearing house of light colors. That means the city knows where we are." Austin nodded and watched as Jess left the room. He looked towards the terminal one last time and followed Jess out. He took his scout rifle from his back and scanned the rooftops across from them. Austin saw movement and stopped. "Jess" he said quietly. Jess turned to look at him. "We have contacts." Jess jumped as a fallen sniper shot went through Austin's head.

Austin blinked and he was in a white void swirling with yellows. He felt the ground under him, but couldn't see it. He walked forward slowly, his footsteps echoing around him. He looked around him but everything looked the same. He was wondering where he was until a female voice humming a tune broke his thoughts. He looked around, but all he saw was a white ball of energy floating casually towards him. Austin figured out that the voice came from the ball when the humming stopped and was replaced with "there you are!" Austin looked around, confused. "What do you mean? Where am i?" The ball cut off his string of questions "I know you have alot of questions but right now, we need your help." Austin took a step backwards "we?" The ball just floated closer "Yep! Me and the traveler." Again Austin asked a question "who are you?" The ball gave an exclamation of surprise then said "oh, yeah. You don't recognise me, do you?" Austin shook his head and the ball chuckled. "Right. Still getting used to the whole Ball of energy thing." The ball flew a couple feet backwards, then it transformed into what Austin recognised as a ghost. It was black without the two side flippers in the front. It's eye was purple and many purple dots made up the diamond of the center eye. "Niko?" Austin asked, astonished. "Hey, austin" Niko said "Its been a while, hasn't it?" Austin stumbled backward. It couldn't be. She was dead. She died because of him. "How?" He finally breathed. "You were dead. I saw you in pieces!" Niko flew towards the startled guardian. "Still am" she said. "Ghosts have two parts: their light, and their conciousness. When they die their conscious memories get transferred into the light, and the light gets sent to the traveler and that's that. However, every once in a while, the traveler sends visions to guardians using the light of a ghost they knew. So here I am." Austin put his hands up and said "Okay, slow down. You are a vision?" Niko spun in place "all of this is. I am just a conscious one." Austin put his hands on his head. "So" he paused, processing information and choosing his words "Why did you come to me? Why not Sarah? She needs you now more than ever." Niko sunk a little in the air. "Sarah, is not connected to the traveler like you are. Something is interfering with her. Influencing her." Now Austin began to get scared "she is being controlled?" Niko flew towards Austin sharply. She was now just a foot away "No! No, something is making her more willing to act like she is." Austin pondered his options. There was a chance to save Sarah. He could help her. "What do I have to do?" He asked the ghost in front of him. Niko responded "first off, you need to save Casper. He is in so much pain. Phisically, and emotionally." Austin made a face of confusion and concern. "You'll see eventually." She awnsered. "Now before I get to step two, the traveler has a gift for you." She went over to one of Austin's hands and touched it. Austin felt a surge of immense light flow through him and he let some of it burst through his whole body. He looked down and saw that he was floating with arc light crackiling around his body. He laughed and look at niko, who was smiling at work well done. Austin gathered the light and quenched the super as he asked "this is the traveler's gift?" Niko floated up to Austin. "That and a couple more. One of which you will use to get out of here." Austin held out his hand like he would for Casper, and niko flew to it. "So what was part two you told me about?" Niko just smiled and said "kick some ass for me." Austin chuckled and asked "No hard feelings?" Niko smiled and replied "just summon the solar light." Austin did and was immediately pulled into the air. As the world around him began to dissapear he heard niko call out "No hard feelings!" It was still echoing in his head when he woke up, ablaze"

Austin got up slowly to find Jess pinned down by enemy fire coming from the building. He felt the warmth of the light pulling him to his feet. When he was standing the light forced Austin's back to arch and his hands to fly out to the side as it burst forth fully. Austin ripped himself out of the pose he was in to find he was engulfed in flames. He looked back and saw two wings of fire on his back, but strangely, no sword. He looked in his hands and saw light grenades. He laughed as he knew what to do. He used the light to pull the closest fallen towards him. He grabbed it by the neck when it got close enough, then rolled over it, throwing a grenade at more called down the hall he retrieved this one from. He kicked the fallen's face mask off, then dodged a slash it swung at him. Austin slammed a grenade onto its back that stuck to it. He used a blast from his palm to blast it to the ceiling, then, using the light and gravity, slung it towards another group of fallen. As the explosion shook the building, Austin looked at the last group of three fallen who had stopped shooting and were backing away as austin slowly approached with his arms out at his side with solar grenades in them. As the fallen came to a wall, they all threw down their weapons. Austin continued to walk towards them while saying "Why are you here?" The vandal in the group spoke up in a voice that reminded Austin of someone gurgling water "Nasa Sook Bo Ka Goden" Austin couldn't understand what they said, but he stopped and asked "who is your leader?" The vandal shrunk before Austin's gaze "Ku da-Kell, Missraks." Austin only got the name. He heard it pronounced mithrax, but he still had one more question. "What is your goal? You don't wear the same colors as most fallen we see." The vandal didn't meet Austin's eyes as it answered "Drass ko da Missraks drah lo bo" Austin quenched the solar light and motioned for the fallen to go. The vandal scurried on all six of its limbs until it got to the window. It made sure both dregs got out before taking one last look at Austin and jumping out itself. Austin released the breath he didn't realise he was holding and turned to Jess and Wilbur, who was floating above Jess' shoulder. "Did you get that, wilbur?" Wilbur shook himself and stuttered through his awnser "yeah. I got it." Austin looked at Jess, who was unreadable because of her helmet. "How? I haven't seen a sunsinger since before the red war!" Austin used the light to bring his gun into his hand and answered "a gift from a friend. There's a couple more in here too" he tapped his chest as he said the last part. Jess slowly got up "What now?" She asked. Austin replied with a smile creeping into his tone "save a little ghost, kick a little ass, and solve a little mystery. Then we will have to see." Austin and Jess exited the building side by side. Two red gems and a blue one casting light on a wall from Austin's finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So better late than never
> 
> Jess is not my character. She belongs to DuckierGalaxy. I have permission to use her. He has said he wants to start writing on here, but he is paranoid that the 2 people that follow my stories are going to read his and accuse him of theft. (So go to his account and read his stories if he's posted any by the time you read this ;) )
> 
> Cya later  
> -uno C H O N K Y shark


	10. A little detour

Nathan leaned back in his chair, watching the ship warp from the front window. For a time he was content to just relax. He was tempted to sleep, but he resisted out of fear by getting up and going into the cargo bay where Athena was working on some of the ship's systems via a maintenence hatch in the floor. He keeled down and called into the hole "how's my maid doing down there?" The green shell of Athena popped into view as she jokingly responded with "maid? Well at least it's not as bad as chauffeur." Nathan chuckled "you didn't awnser the question." Athena turned back to her work and said "well, there is an unusual strain on the impulse engines. I can fix it but I may need to take some parts out of life support." Nathan waved a hand "go on ahead. I can hold my breath" Athena chuckled and sarcasticly hummed her response as she transmitted Nathan's helmet on backwards. She laughed again when she heard a muffled "hey!" And then a loud crash, signaling that he fell. She looked at the opining of the hole again as Nathan's head came into view. "How long will it take to fix, missy?" He asked Athena turned to her work and said "count down from ten" Nathan did to humor his ghost and around four he felt the air begin to get stuffy "You didn't!" He exclaimed in mock surprise and Athena just politely replied with "better start holding your breath." A few minutes later the ship came to its destination. The vex world of nessus. Nathan went to the cargo bay and got his hand cannon and sword. He went to choose another gun when he lingered on a sniper rifle. He gently touched it and memories came. 

the bitter cold. Nathan holding his breath as he got ready for the shot. Athena saying something beside him. The kick of the rifle. The moment of elation when he hit his target, quickly replaced by the horror of what he did, coupled with the confusion of why. The blast of light hit him as he snapped out of his stupor.

sometime later Nathan came up to a crevice and looked in. Their objective was about a couple thousand feet down. A couple times the distance of the building he jumped off in old new York. Athena appeared and informed austin "bringing down some rope and a winch." Nathan smiled under his helmet and said "who needs ropes?" And jumped into the giant chasm. Athena just floated there, waiting for the sound of Nathan's jump jets firing. And failing due to the height. Once the low thump of Nathan hitting the ground sounded, she teleported his body up next to her and revived him. "You" she said "You need ropes." As If on cue ropes transmitted down beside Nathan and he picked them up. Nathan put a pike into firm ground on the edge of the cliff, then tied the rope around it. He threw the rest of the rope into the canyon, and attached the winch to it. He wrapped a rope around himself and into the winch, then with a last check of the equipment, he jumped into the hole again. This time he stopped falling after a few feet. Nathan checked the rope again, then pushed a button on the winch that then lowered him down slowly into the darkness. After about a minute of rappeling, he reached the bottom. Nathan. Unhooked himself from the ropes and Athena appeared over his shoulder. She parted the front of her shell a bit and a light came out of her eye, lighting up the walls and following Nathan's gaze. Nathan walked in the canyon for a while before it began to open up. Nathan stepped over some fallen rocks and came to his destination: a crashed ship. It was too mangled to make out what class or type it was, but Nathan knew this was it. He walked up to it and gently touched it "there you are, girl." he whispered to the hunk of metal. Athena flew from Nathan's shoulder to a hole in the ship. She bagan to scan it while Nathan stumbled around in the dark, trying to get up to where she was. Finally, Athena noticed and brought a light to where Nathan was, and he climbed up to her. He looked down at where she was scanning and found a one seat cockpit. He looked at it and found it hard to believe that this was where he was found, trapped in a ship he had no memory of. It took an hour or so for Athena to get him calmed down enough to get the cockpit canopy open. He chuckled a little at the absurdity of the situation he was revived in. "How have you faired with the black box?" They came back a while after they got Nathan to the tower and established a link between the ships black box and Athena. She had been working on cracking it in her free time ever since. Nathan watched Athena for a bit before looking around in the darkness. He saw some red lights through the darkness but didn't think anything of them. He continued to watch Athena until she glanced at him. She did a double take and yelled at him "Nathan!" Nathan whirled around just in time to see a metal hand grip his throat and hoist him into yhe air. He was looking into the eye of a vex Minotaur. It was a huge robot with long, thin arms and legs. It's head was mounted on a short neck, its head was also small with a small fan on the back. Even with it barely bringing it's arm up, Nathan's feet were a foot or two off the ground. Nathan looked around as far as he could and saw a bunch of vex goblins as well. These were smaller than the Minotaur, but just as deadly. They had bigger fans on the top of their heads, that were long and came to a point just in front and below their eye. They had thin arms and legs. The big difference was that the goblins had a glowing white stomach that was their weak spot. Nathan growled at the Minotaur, and took out his hand cannon. He shot the Minotaur's shoulder, but the bullets stopped a few inches from the chassis of the robot. With the Minotaur having shields, Nathan could think of only one thing to do. He summoned the arc light and the Minotaur's hand got electrocuted and opened its grip. Nathan glanced back at the crashed ship and didn't see Athena, he looked back at the Minotaur who put its long fingers together to try to impale him. "Lets dance" he said and the vex sounded a war cry of their own. He knocked the Minotaur's hand aside, and followed it up with a knock to its back. Nathan's staff stopped a couple inches from the Minotaur. Nathan flipped back and stabbed a goblin in the stomach. He ripped his staff out of the goblin, causing it to crumble in two halves on the ground. Nathan did a flourish with his staff and hit the Minotaur with a two handed strike that broke it's shield. The giant vex stumbled backwards, and Nathan took the opportunity to sweep it's feet from under it, jump up, and stab through its chest with his staff. The lights on the Minotaur went out, but Nathan couldn't rest. He still had multiple goblins to deal with. He lunged at the closest one and managed to get it into a headlock. With the groan of folding metal and a grunt from Nathan he wrenched it's head off. Turning, he knocked another goblin's weapon aside and pushed the head in his hands into the stomach of the vex. He pushed the dead robot over and pulled out his hand cannon. Three shots downed another goblin, and a quick knife throw killed one more. He thought he was done when a hit to his head threw him down. He turned on his back to see a headless goblin with electricity arcing around it and sporadic movements standing over him. Nathan mentally kicked himself for forgetting that vex don't need a head. Looking around for his hand cannon that he dropped, Nathan saw the vex head still protruding from the first goblin he had killed. With surprising ease, he broke off the fan of the goblin head, and drove it into the stomach of his robotic assailant. The vex stopped, and it's top half slowly slid off its legs. Nathan scooted away from the splash of white liquid that followed. He slowly stood and said to Athena "please tell me you have that black box cracked." Athena appeared, smiling as wide as a ghost can. "And more! There is a wreck of a ship nearby, it should Give us some shelter for the night." Nathan nodded and began to make his way back to the ropes he used to get into the ravine. At the ropes he connected himself, then looked around for any vex that would ambush him. With that he activated the winch, and begun his climb. At the top, Nathan had a look around, and began running towards Athena's waypoint.

That night, they had stopped for shelter under a rock overhang. Athena had watched Nathan sleep for most of the night. She had been debating on whether to open the black box or not. She was debating with herself when she felt the vitals of Nathan peak over their mental link. She looked at the Hunter and scanned him over. She confirmed that, yes, his heart rate was peaking and brain activity was high as well. She sighed, as well as a ghost could sigh, and gently nudged his hand. After about a minute of Athena trying to wake Nathan up, he finally did. Nathan bolted upright, breathing heavily and looked at his hands. "Another nightmare?" Athena asked. Nathan nodded and Athena floated over and perched on his shoulder, leaning into his neck. "I wish I could take them away." She said. Nathan just stayed quiet. After a while Athena asked "would you like to see the data?" Nathan, knowing what she meant, said "why not? We've got a couple hours until sunrise, and I'm not going back to sleep" Athena flew off her perch and summoned a hologram of Nathan's past. As the blue of the hologram reflected off the walls of the overhang, the stars shone down on the mangled remains of a colony ship, beating witness to all events that happened under her watch.


	11. A betrayal of family

Natalie was chasing a boy through a forest. She couldn't get a good look at him, but all she knew was that he was fast. "Come, sister! Come!" He had been calling her that for the whole chase. "Wait!" She called out "let me catch up! It's dangerous out there!" The boy slipped through a narrow space in some fallen trees. Natalie threw a flaming hammer at the trees, knocking them apart and allowing her to climb through. She picked up her hammer and followed the boy to a clearing. She stopped a few feet behind him to catch her breath. She said in a joking manner "wow. You are pretty fast, huh?" The boy began chuckling and responded "yeah, sis. It helps when you can teleport." Natalie stopped and slowly looked at the back of the boy's head. Suddenly lightning struck the boy and set him aflame. Natalie rushed to him but was not able to get within a foot from him. Dispite what Natalie expected, the boy continued to laugh. "You think you can capture me? A titan with less than a month of service?" The boys voice was now distorted and resembling a more familiar one. "Don't begin anything you can't finish." Suddenly her world began to spiral into blackness and she woke up screaming.

that morning Natalie knocked on a door to a guardian dorm, And a familliar red exo popped her head out the door "Hello?" She said. Natalie smiled and greeted sarah back. "Me and the others are about to leave and I just wanted to pop by." Sarah Exited her dorm to walk Natalie towards the hanger. "So you are going after Austin and Nathan?" Sarah asked Natalie while they walked towards the hangar. Natalie corrected her by saying "we only want to talk if they start shooting, then we are going to try to take them in. Sarah nodded "then you want to talk to Austin. A little advice: kill his followers. Isolate him. Then he'll be forced to talk to you. Sarah stopped as the guardians entered the hangar. Natalie kept going but turned as Sarah called for her. "And Natalie! Keep your ghost safe." Natalie nodded and continued towards the dropship that was waiting for her. She walked up the ramp and into the ship. Inside she saw a titan in light green armor waiting for her, and a Hunter leaning on the back wall. "Ah! There you are." the titan exclaimed upon seeing her. He instantly went to the cockpit to raise the ramp and get underway. As the ramp raised Natalie went to the Hunter in the back. She held out her hand and said "I assume you're blaze?" The Hunter looked up and shook her hand "yep. And you're Natalie." Natalie nodded and the ship rocked under her. As the fireteam shot into orbit spud came back into the cargo bay. "So why did you want to come with us?" He asked. Natalie answered "because I don't think Austin and Nathan are as bad as what people say. I interacted with them and they didn't seem like cold-blooded murderers. I want to talk with them." Spud walked forward to where he was within feet of her. "Well we are here to save a friend. If talking with them puts that mission in danger, we will not hesitate to attack." Natalie looked at blaze, who was slowly nodding. Natalie straightened up to meet spud's height and challenged "yes, but negotiations are important. If you attack, your friend might get hurt, or worse. So I suggest you act smart down there." Silence enveloped the room for a few seconds until spud said "I like you. You'll fit in just fine.

The fireteam dropped down into a beach overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Natalie turned and looked at the ocean that stretched to the horizon. She only broke her gaze when she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked to see blaze motioning for her to follow. Natalie followed and knelt down beside spud as blaze went in front of them. "As Natalie may or may not know, every guardian Is outfitted with a tracking beacon. Austin and Nathan destroyed theirs somehow, but Jess still has hers and we have tracked their path to this beach. Since Natalie wants to talk to them, we will have to hold off on the ambush plan we had, spud." Spud lowered his head and Natalie almost chuckled. A plan was made. They would all stand in plain sight on the beach until Austin and Nathan arrived. Blaze and spud protested this, but Natalie won the argument saying "if they come to us willingly, then it's alot better than us popping out of the bushes at them" as they waited Natalie felt the water with her gloveless hands. The waves pushing up against her was soothing in a way. "So how did you meet Austin?" Spud said from his place kneeling in the sand. "Well" Natalie awnsered "they were there when my ghost found me. They helped me back to their camp and taught me what they could about how to use the light. Something dosent add up and I want to see what it is." Before spud could respond, blaze called out to the team "He's here" Natalie and spud looked down the beach too see a warlock with red armor walking towards them.

The lone warlock and the fireteam faced off. Austin had his hands behind his back, and everyone from the opposing fireteam had hands on their weapons. "So" Natalie began "tell me your entire evil scheme." Austin chuckled and replied "that will work one day, but not today. If you have to know something, let's just say I am on my way to see an old friend." Blaze asked the next question "where is Jess?" The awnser came as "she is alot closer than you think." Then it was spuds turn to ask something "why won't you come back to the tower with us?" Austin exclaimed "finally! A good question!" He took a moment to awnser "Sarah is not as benevolent as she may seem. She is trying to kill me, Nathan, and possibly Jess, as well as all our ghosts out of cold blood. She is playing you." Blaze could barely contain her anger as she spat out "why would she kill Jess? It may only be a cover up to hide the fact that you killed her!" Suddenly the fireteam heard a female voice from behind them "Well it looks like you don't care either way." They all spun around to see Jess with her arms crossed in front of her chest. "Jess?" Blaze asked with relief in her voice. Jess, however was practically screaming "don't 'Jess' me! It's been four days, and you've already replaced me? As soon as I was missing was it 'oh, I guess Jess is dead'?" Blaze took a step towards Jess "no, it's not like that. We looked for you." That got Jess riled up even more "looked? I have a tracking beacon! You could've found Austin's ship and blown it out of the sky!" Spud spoke up when blaze was speechless "Jess, come back with us. We can explain it all there." Jess shook her head and walked around the group "no. There is something going on here, and I want to be with the people that actually see it." Spud spoke quietly and gently as Jess ended up beside Austin "listen. You've been brainwashed. You've read the files, these men are master manipulators. You are a part of our fireteam. We are family." Jess awnsered spud in her angry tone "oh really? It seems family goes a long way when I get replaced in four days, no one even made an attempt to look for me, and you guys are all ready to shoot me right now! I see your hands on your guns!" Spud lowered his head and softly asked "then it's treason?" Jess noticed the small flames flickering to life on his palms and said just as quietly "yes. I guess it is." Blaze took a couple steps towards Jess and said "please. Don't let us lose you." Jess challenged by saying "you've already made your choice so I made mine. I'm staying with austin." With a pained scream spud summoned his light and charged his betrayer.


	12. Burning bridges

Austin grabbed Jess and blinked. They both appeared behind the charging spud. "Now listen" Austin said "there is no need to fight. If you let us go, we'll be on our way." Blaze pulled a longbow off her back that was almost as big as she was. She nocked an arrow and drew, pointing it at Austin. Austin blinked past the arrow towards Natalie, who was already aiming her machine gun. With a soft curse, Austin blinked and dodged behind a rock on the beach. Jess did the same and Austin switched to internal comms with a few presses of his wrist. "Well that didn't work. You have any ideas?" Jess thought for a moment and then awnsered "just one." She waited for a pause in the suppressing fire Natalie was laying down before shouting "think for a second! It's just me and Austin. Wern't there originally two exiles?" Austin peeked out from behind their cover and saw the three guardians looking at each other and then towards more inland, where a hill could be seen. The opposing fireteam suddenly scrambled for the cover of a natural rock wall. Austin looked at the Hunter sharing his cover "smart girl." He said, then they both dashed out. Blaze was the first to spot them sprinting over the open sand. She loosed an arrow at Austin, but he sidestepped it and caught it with the light. With a spin to give the arrow momentum he slung it back at blaze and the arrow went straight through her head. Using blaze's falling body as a springboard, Jess jumped at Natalie, while Austin took the other titan. Austin blocked a punch from spud and dodged a second. With a blast of light Austin sent the titan back a few feet. He charged forward, drawing his sword off his back with a slash. Spud, however, didn't need a sword. He just blocked Austin's strike with his gauntlets and held him there. "We just need to kill you." Spud said "and your ghost will revive you at the city." Austin tried to keep his calm, but hearing that Casper was at the city scared him. "Where is he?" Austin looked in the reflection of spuds helmet, and saw a figure behind him. Quickly, Austin blinked behind spud and slashed across his back. He kicked the titan forward and saw two void swords come out of his back. Spud fell and blaze stood in his place, looking shocked for a second, and letting her void swords fizzle out, but quickly regained her composure. "Gotta be quicker than that, hunter" Austin teased, and blaze shot forward, brandishing her own sword.

Jess pushed Natalie off her just as she saw Austin kick spud into blaze's swords. She smiled as she saw blaze rush the warlock. "You know" the Hunter said to Natalie. "You haven't been a guardian for a week, have you?" Natalie aimed her gun and a hail of bullets roared towards Jess. The Hunter spun around the volley and slashed at Natalie with a short sword. "And that means you are inexperienced." Natalie pulled the trigger again but her gun just made a click sound. Jess continued her rant "So you are way out of your league. Why don't you just give up?" Natalie grabbed her machine gun by the barrel and began swinging it at Jess, using the stock as a club. The hunter easily dodged every attack "there we go!" She teased "finally thinking outside the box!" Natalie lobbed her gun at jess before charging her. The titan's shoulder dropped and jess had just enough time to see Natalie, crackling with arc energy, shoulder charge into her chest.

Austin heard a sound like lightning and looked to see Natalie standing over a desintegrating Jess. He sighed and turned his attention to blaze and the newly revived spud. Blaze attacked first with a swipe to Austin's legs. The warlock easily jumped over it and blinked past an overhead swing from Spud's claymore. Blaze then tried to slash across Austin's torso before spud went for his head. These trading attacks continued to push Austin back until he was almost past the end of the rock wall. He felt his attackers slow their attacks and he used the pauses in between to ask "So you took my ghost so he would revive me back at the tower? That seems like a pretty flawed plan." At this point Natalie had joined in the attacks. "No." Spud awnsered, pointing his sword at Austin. "the plan was to capture you. Jess saw we couldn't win, so she took your ghost. We were hoping to get some information off of him." Austin didn't like the way spud worded that sentence, but he couldn't dwell on it as Natalie caught one of Austin's attacks by making an X with her gauntlets. "But we arn't like you" spud continued "so we gave him to a trusted guardian so she can handle him." Austin suddenly got a sick feeling in his stomach and let off of Natalie to look at spud. "Who?" If spud noticed that Austin's voice wavered out of fear, he didnt show it. "Sarah." Austin went cold. Not Sarah. He would be okay with anyone but Sarah. Next thing he knew Natalie had punched his side and thrown him rolling across the sand. She charged him and Austin growled. An unnatural rage flowed through him as he blocked her attack with his sword. "That's it." He spat at her "kiss your ass goodbye." With that he empowered his sword with solar light and raked the edge along her arm, slicing through it like butter. He then used the crossguard of his sword to punch Natalie to the ground. She landed on her back and watched as Austin quickly reversed his grip on his sword and plunged it through her chest and into the sand breath her. Austin funneled all of his solar light into his sword and it began to glow bright yellow. With one final look at his enemy he let the sword go, allowing the newly formed well of radiance to scatter the many pieces of his enemy all across the beach.

when Natalie's ghost appeared, Austin grabbed it and tossed it out of the cover of the rock wall. It caught itself in the air and watched as Austin walked over to it. Blaze and spud ran after Austin until he arrived at beside the ghost and raised his hand. He was situated so that the ghost was in direct line of sight for the hill. Everyone stopped and Austin said in a voice barely containing his anger "if anyone moves one fucking muscle I swear to the traveler." The threat didn't need to be finished to get the message across. Blaze and spud put their weapons away and raised their hands. "Question one" Austin said, still seething "where exactly is my fucking ghost?"

Wilbur revived Jess and checked her over. she wondered at the mysterious lack of enemies until she noticed the very red sand and her even more red ghost. "Wilbur!"She yelled at her bloody companion, scooping him out of the air "what Happened?" Wilbur just looked at her and said "we may have made the wrong choice." It was then that Jess saw what Austin was doing. He had his hand up, with both of their opponents at bay. But what caught her attention the most was that he had a ghost near him. He had a ghost hostage, which means that he was threatening to kill it. She followed the blood to it's center and saw a sword in the ground with a massive circle of fire around it And she shook her head. Austin killed one of their foes and was now using their ghost as leverage.

After a couple minutes of a standoff between Austin and the other two guardians Austin pushed the ghost towards Blaze. The hunter caught it and all three vanished in a flash of blue light. Austin walked over to a helmetless jess, who was ankle deep in the ocean using the water to wash off Wilbur. Austin came up beside Jess, took off his own helmet, and said "Well I know where they are keeping Casper. We need to get to him fast though. I don't know what Sarah is doing to him." Jess was silent as she continued to wash the blood off her ghost. Austin reached out his hand "here, let me..." he was cut off as Jess grabbed his hand with a frighteningly strong grip. "Don't you ever even think about touching my ghost. Ever." She released Austin's arm and the warlock asked, confused. "What's wrong? Is it the fact that Natalie killed you?" Jess bolted to her feet and looked directly into austins eyes. "you threatened to kill a ghost, didnt you?" Austin backed up as Jess continued her assault "you say you are the good guys, but what was that? That was Natalie's ghost! She hasn't even been alive for a week, Austin! You act as if killing a ghost is just like crushing a beetle under your foot!" Jess turned back to the ocean as the finished "I will help you get Casper back, but after that I'm done. I no longer agree with what Sarah says, but I prefer that to murdering guardians!" Austin was caught off guard by Jess' sudden hostility. "You just fought your old fireteam. You would be an exile like us." He protested but Jess stood her ground by saying "yes, I just fought my fireteam, but now I'm wondering if it was worth it. As for being an exile: you better hope that doesn't happen, or you will have yet another enemy to run from." Jess returned to Wilbur, leaving Austin to stand there in disbelief.

this session had been going on for many hours now. Hours of constant pain. Casper was near his breaking point. He could barely lift his form into the air at all. It had been almost a full five days since he was taken from his guardian, and Sarah was getting impatient. The titan picked up the ghost from where he had fallen after getting thrown against the wall. "I will ask you one last time." Sarah told Casper "where is austin?" She then began to slowly close her fist around Casper, crushing him. The pain of his shell breaking and cracking, and his core being bent inwards was too much for Casper, but he had to hold out. The moment he told Sarah anything, she would kill him. Then again, he didnt think sarah would care if he died right now. For all he knew austin had left him for dead. Casper's bravery melted away and it was replaced with a flood of emotions. Fear, confusion, and loss. But the one he felt the most, was Anger. Anger at sarah, anger at the situation, anger at the pain. But mostly at Austin. His supposed "friend" that left him when he needed him the most. The one that got him into this situation. The guardian he never should have revived. The pain slowly drowned out any concious thought Casper had until all he wanted was a release from the pain. He wanted it to stop, needed it to stop and he had the means to make it do so. His front flippers snapped in half from the point to the base and he finally screamed out "we aren't linked!" Instantly, Sarah stopped "bullshit" she said "all ghosts are linked to their guardians." Casper had no choice now "I'm defective. I never was able to link mentally with Austin. I have no idea where he is, and no way to find out." Sarah slammed Casper on the center table and walked out of the room closing the door behind her. Casper just sat there, the pain of his broken shell still racing through him, and cried as well as a ghost could. It was over. He was going to die alone, and Austin had abandoned him to a world of pain and torment. And as Casper waited in the dark, he found he welcomed his death. He was looking toward to the final release from the pain. With those thoughts in his pain filled mind, he slipped off into the most peaceful sleep that he had since he got into the room.


	13. All the pieces

Nathan was not a normal name for any awoken, but Nathan was not normal by any means. In the awoken's matriarch a male climbing in status at all was rare, but Nathan had managed to be the leader for a squadron of starfighters, called crows by the reef. The reef was a collection of gathered asteroids out past mars. From the surface, the sky was a dark purple, with the sun shining down on the mass of tangled rock that was one of the awoken's war cities. Complete with landing pads for fighters, as well as docking for capital class craft. Nathan was sitting on the nose of his fighter, watching his home drift when the current queen's wrath, Petra venj, called up to him. "Enjoying the view, I see." Nathan smiled down at the red hair of his blue-skinned friend, and jumped down to land beside her. "So can I hope this is a personal greeting?" He asked, jokingly. Petra smiled and awnsered "not this time, my friend. I have orders from the queen to give all squadron leaders. We are to attack the hive dreadnaught in three days. Make sure your ships are fueled and weapons armed. There will be a squad leader briefing tomorrow at dawn. Make sure your corsairs know." Corsairs were the reef soldiers, all of which were female. "Well you can let the queen know that it is already done." Nathan replied. a short conversation preceded Petra leaving Nathan to gather his corsairs. Once all of his squadron of ten was notified it was late at night, or what was considered night for the reef. Nathan smiled up at the sky and strode off to a meeting with a certain someone.

72 HOURS UNTIL THE ATTACK  
Nathan was sitting in a room with a hologram in the center of a circle of seats. In the center was an awoken techeun. She wore a long hood that draped over the front of her shoulders. In the seats around the hologram were the many awoken squad leaders. Nathan was the only male in the room. "This is the hive dreadnaught" the techeun Said, pulling up a picture of a massive ship. It looked like an unnaturally long diamond with a raised portion down the center of the sides. In the exact middle was a circle shaped indention. The techeun continued "it was last spotted approaching us near saturn. The plan is to attack it with all of our forces. There is just one complication." The holomap zoomed out to reveal ten smaller capital ships, all the same shape as the dreadnaught, but smaller and without the circle on the side. A murmer rose from the corsairs gathered at the briefing. The techeun raised a hand and the room quieted down. "As far as we know, these are the only escorts the dreadnaught has. No fighters have been spotted, so our attack plan is to strike with everything we have." A hand raised among the crowd. And when selected to speak the woman asked "wouldent it be better to save some of our forces in case the attack fails?" The techeun awnsered "if the attack fails, the dreadnaught will wipe out the reef, resistance or not. No, we need every corsair we have to attack this threat." The hologram moved to show the awoken forces, comprised of five capital class ketches, and a swarm of hundreds, if not thousands of fighters. The techeun pressed buttons on the holomap and the fighters separated into two groups. "There are only two objectives in this battle: protect the ketches, and destroy the escorts to make way for the queen to destroy the dreadnaught." The techeun pointed toward her audience. "Now, for squadron assignments."

42 HOURS UNTIL THE ATTACK  
Nathan had spent the night thinking about his squadron's assignments, but now that he was standing at the center of his own briefing circle with his squadron standing around him. "So" he said, clapping his hands together "we have quite the task ahead of us. We need to help the queen herself destroy a hive dreadnaught"his group began murmuring amongst themselves and Nathan waited for them to stop before continuing "I know it's a tall order, but it's only escorted by capital craft. Our assignment is easy: shoot the escorts. We have crows covering us, and crows covering them and so on and so forth." His squadron simply looked at each other, unsure. Nathan saw their hesitation and jumped to comfort them. "Listen, I know you all are scared about this, I am too, but if that ship gets through us, there is nothing stopping it from coming Here and slaughtering the entire reef. You are fighting for your families and friends. I promise I will get every one if you home safe." Nathan's speech seemed to work as his squad seemed to be paying more attention. "Okay" he began "Here is what we are going to be doing."

24 HOURS UNTIL THE ATTACK  
Nathan was walking around the outside of his fighter, checking for tiny problems like a missile tip being out of line, or a vent being dented. In space, little things like that could drasticly throw off flight and attacks. The rest of his squadron was prepared to launch, but Nathan had no interest in being scrunched up in a cockpit all day. It was only when the blastwave from a ketch taking off hit him that he finally decided to begin getting into his ship. As he was climbing the ladder to his cockpit Petra came out to say her farewells. "Nathan!" She called up after him "yes, Petra?" Nathan replied. Petra stood at the bottom of Nathan's ladder and said "I'm not going. The queen has told me to stay here." Nathan climbed down from his ship and said jokingly "the queen is sending you away again? What have you done this time?" Petra chuckled "I just wanted to say farewell." She gave Nathan a quick hug and a smile "and be careful." And with that she strode off across the empty landing pad. Nathan quickly climbed into his ship and closed the canopy. "Okay, crows." He said into his radio "ready for takeoff, we will be next to the flagship ketch, so look pretty for the queen."

12 HOURS UNTIL THE ATTACK  
Flying for roughly twelve hours straight always put Nathan in a sour mood, even in warp they had a few more hours to go. A short game of I-spy put some mirth back into his squadron, but it was short lived as the only thing to "spy" were ships and the swirling blue view of warp. Right now Nathan was partaking in a game of riddles, he hated riddles, but as long as his squad had their minds off the coming battle, Nathan could endure. He smiled as laughter broke over the radio when one of his crows guessed the obscene awnser. "Okay, I've got one." he said into the Mic. Some Oos came over the radio and he said his riddle "I walk on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, three in the evening, and none at night. What am i?" The radio went silent for a few seconds as his group thought. One of the women said eventually "you said you had one, not ten." Nathan's group chuckled as they continued on their way.

1 HOUR UNTIL THE ATTACK  
Saturn was in sight for hours now. the awoken armada was out of warp and marching towards their target in the rings of the planet. "That, is the dreadnaught?" One of Nathan's crows asked. "Easy, Tris." Nathan replied, flipping switches to arm his weapons. "They can't penetrate your shields." As the armada got closer to the give ships, Nathan understood his crow's fear as his own heart rate began to climb.

0 HOURS UNTIL THE ATTACK  
The radio command to attack came when the hive ships were in range of the awoken ketch's main guns. Nathan gave the order and pushed the throttle all the way down. The rocks and asteroids whizzed by at alarming speed as Nathan led the charge. When they were close green projectiles began to fire at the swarm of fighters. Nathan's heart grew cold and he smiled as adrenaline flooded his system. As what the plan had said, Nathan's group broke off into five groups of two, who then each took an escort. Nathan banked and turned his craft to the right to go for the nearest escort. He lined up for an attack on the hive ship and pressed a button. All of Nathan's missiles launched and hit their mark in a line, front to back. Nathan twirled his ship around the back of the hive capital craft and his wingman followed.

through the battle Nathan did not lose any of his squadron, even though he saw other crows going down. When two hive escorts went down, Nathan looked towards the flagship and saw seven massive balls of energy forming. He smiled and told his squad "harbingers forming, we are almost done!" Nathan pushed the stick and flew away from the hive escort he was close to. The harbingers were released, and nathan and his squad watched as they cut through all of the dreadnaught escorts. Nothing stood in the way of the harbinger's onslaught until they reached the dreadnaught. As soon as they hit nothing happened. Nathan quickly found his hope fading away, like the light of the balls of energy. A green mist formed on the ends of the dreadnaught, and moved down the center line until it hit the circle. Awoken radio chatter began to pick up as all of the army was confused, scared, and losing hope. The circle on the side of the dreadnaught began glowing and Nathan jumped into action. "Get out of there!" He practically screamed into his radio, just as a massive blast ripped out from the dreadnaught. Nathan slammed the throttle down and his squad did the same. The blast quickly caught up to them, however, and all but two of Nathan's squadron was caught in the blast. "Come on, guys. There is a planet we can warp to." He told them desperately. A weak voice came over the radio "I can't keep up. I think my engine was hit. I'm sorry." One of his crows was engulfed by the blast. The remaining one stumbled through a sentence "By the queen, Tris is down!" Nathan could mourn her later but now he needed to get this crow home. "Come on, Ves, stay with me." Nathan punched coordinates into his warp drive. "You promised." Was the last thing he would ever hear ves say as she was engulfed by the blast. Nathan's ship went into warp as the blast caught up with him. He punched the instrument panel and screamed at the swirling colors outside his cockpit.

Nathan covered his face as sparks and smoke flew out of the instrument panel when he came out of warp. He was looking at a small planet, the green surface practically glowing. He frantically pressed buttons and cursed as the planet grew larger. Finally, Nathan managed to regain control of the ship, but his happiness quickly faded when he realised that the engine of his ship was all but destroyed. Nathan cursed and watched for a place to crash land. The awoken ships were not designed to be gliders, they stayed flying in atmosphere by antigrav thrusters. Fire engulfed the nose of the ship as it broke the planets atmosphere. Nathan gently pulled up on the stick, but stopped when the dashboard caught on fire. Nathan quickly ripped a chunk of his jacket off and used it to put out the flames. His ship lost a wing right as it broke through the planet's atmosphere. As Nathan fell, he began to spin. He was pressed against the left side of the cockpit as he began to get dizzy from his uncontrolled decent. As the ground rushed up to meet him, Nathan's last thought was one of regret.

Nathan gasped awake and slowly blinked his eyes. It was dark, really dark. "Hello? Guardian?"He heard someone call from somewhere. He looked around, but still saw nothing. He tried to awnser the voice but was rewarded with only extreme pain and a violent coughing fit. "Oh, good." He heard the feminine voice say "you're okay." Nathan watched as a light filtered in from gaps in the wall of whatever place he was in. He tried to reach out to stick a finger through a hole, but he found he could barely move as he was so stuff. He yelped in pain. "Are you okay?" The voice asked. Nathan hummed his awnser in the affermative and worked on trying to pry his bones free from each other. "Okay" the voice continued to say "looks like you are in a crashed ship. You need to find the canopy release." Nathan was confused. Canopy release? What was a canopy release? He finally got one of his arms moving with less pain than before. he barely raised it above his head when he hit a roof. With dread setting in, he tried to move his legs. Same as his arms, they were extremely stiff, but in his moment of fear, he powered through the pain and found that his legs were engulfed in holes that were not allowing them to move. Claustrophobia was quickly setting in and Nathan began to panic. He threw his hands against the walls of his cage, beating on them, trying to get them open."What's going on in there?"He was barely aware of the voice talking "hey! It should be a yellow lever under your seat. Pull it towards you." Nathan followed the directions and saw some sort of lever, but it wasn't yellow. Not seeing any downsides to pulling it, he did so. He heard a massive boom and looked up to see the walls and roof were gone. In th e open air, Nathan began to calm down. A small white robot flew down to eye level with him and Nathan identified her as the voice when she spoke "Okay, that was a little worrying, but you're okay." Nathan had another laughing fit and then asked with a pain-filled scratchy voice "who are you?" The construct flew backwards a bit and said "I am a ghost" Then her tone changed as she corrected herself "well, actually I'm your ghost. You've been dead a long time." Nathan looked at the ghost with a fear filled expression. "What do you mean dead?"

Nathan gasped and fell back against the wall of a cave as lightning struck from a storm outside. "You okay?" Athena asked. Nathan breathed heavy for a few seconds, then smiled. "I have some memories." Athena's eye grew wide as she processed what her guardian said "really? That's amazing!" She flew over to her guardian and touched his forehead with one of her top flippers. Nathan began laughing sadly as all the emotions related to those memories flooded him. "Hey" he quietly cooed to athena. When she asked what was on his mind he asked "would you be up for a trip to the reef?"


	14. Breakout

Two guardians came back into view as a civilian passed their hiding spot. Jess hadent been talkative since the encounter on the beach, and Austin was already planning how he would be alone in the wild since Nathan had gone to nessus for some reason for the foreseeable future. "Where did spud say it was?" Jess asked Austin. "Section 14 E" Austin replied, still searching for any movement. Jess was quiet for a couple seconds as she thought about what path to take. "Okay, come on. Keep up or you're getting left behind." She then quickly jumped up onto a roof, and ran towards the closest section of the wall.

the trip would normally not be that long, but Jess had the foresight to remember the wall guards. Guardians that were stationed on the wall through volunteering, or losing their ghosts in the wilds. Every so often she would take cover as a wall guard looked towards the city, and Austin would do the same. When the duo eventually got to the storage district, they dropped down to ground level. "Here we are." Jess said coldly, and Austin began to look around. "There are so many warehouses here." He said Jess just sighed and pointed to the left side if the district. "You look that way and we'll meet in the middle. Don't get spotted"

Jess rummaged through the supplies in the warehouses. She winced as she took a box of hand cannon ammo. She was low anyway, but stealing the box felt wrong. With this one clear she went for the next one, but stopped to gaze at a building. She remembered it from her many times over here. It was an abandoned control center for the supply district. But after the red war, the control center had been moved to the tower. She often saw children playing in and around it. She opened the door to a single dark room. There was a table that was flipped against the left wall, and a small, thin window towards the top of the right wall, showing only the traveler. In the middle of the floor there was a dead ghost, it's body mutilated. Most likley from an encounter with the fallen or hive. Jess turned to go back out when she heard someone speak. The voice was slightly static, like a damaged exo. It also had pain in the tone. "Blue is not your color." Jess whirled around with her hand cannon raised at the empty room. "Come to finish the job?" The voice said again. Jess looked and saw the ghost on the ground had moved. She looked at it and saw the soft blue of its eye. "By the traveler" she breathed. Her jaw dropped when the ghost spoke again "GLX would be proud. Condemning a ghost to death." Jess' breaths now came in shudders. This is Casper? This is what she did to him. She slowly brought her hand up to the side of her helmet. "I found him" she could not muster her voice to speak above a whisper. "Okay, I'm on my way." Austin sounded excited, but Jess' brain didn't register that as she looked over the small ghost in her view. It hasn't even gotten a new shell yet. It was still in the white generalist shell that all ghosts were in when they found their guardian. The white of its shell had been replaced with black burn marks and places where the paint had been melted away, leaving only the silver of the metal underneath. There were large cracks running all over the form of the robot. But his front flippers had snapped in two lengthwise. Both halves were barely attached to his core, which had been dented and crushed to a point where had it not been attached to the shell, Jess would never had recognised it as being a ghost core. She felt a hand on her back and looked to see Austin behind her. When Jess let Austin pass, he and slowly went to Casper and squatred down like one would when approaching a wounded animal. "Casper?" He whispered, reaching out towards his ghost. The form on the ground quickly took to floating an inch off the ground and shied away from his guardians hand. Austin slowly lowered his hand . "Hey, it's me." He called towards his ghost again, taking off his helmet. "Hey, buddy. It's okay. It's just me." Casper continued to gain distance between himself and Austin as he rebutted "just you? It's been five days! Did you just go for supplies and happen to find me?" Jess saw the heartbreak in Austin's movements as he tried to to reconcile with his ghost. "I didn't know where you were. As soon as i knew, we came to get you." Casper floated upwards a little bit and yelled back "Sarah told me you were at the city on day one! You didn't even try to look for me! How is this any diffrent?" Austin was quiet for a long time, studying Casper. Looking at the way his shell drooped around him. How his floating was labored and jerky. "Because you are my ghost." He finally said "my unique, perfect ghost, And I will fight tooth and nail to get you back." Jess heard people talking outside the building. "Austin, we have to go." The warlock nodded and looked back towards his ghost. "Casper, if you don't trust me ever again, trust me now." Austin held out his hand again. Casper floated towards it a bit before stopping and asking "How do I know we won't get separated again?" Jess looked at Austin as he gently awnsered "you don't. That's why I need you to trust me." Casper was quiet for a second before he finally said "okay."

Casper floated over and came to rest in Austin's hand. The warlock smiled as he put his other hand over his companion and ran to Jess. "What are we looking at?" He asked. Jess replied without taking her eyes off the door "at least two guardians. I don't know what class." Austin nodded and took a sidearm from behind his back. Cradling his ghost to his chest, he blinked behind a warehouse. Jess followed after she vanished in a puff of smoke. "I have a ship in the hangar. It's a walk, but it will get us away." She said. Austin had no objections, so he gestured with his free hand for Jess to lead the way.

before the duo left the storage district, Austin transmatted two bottles of paint, and a couple paintbrushes into his suits data backpack. Then he grabbed a ghost core out of another container, stuffed it in one of the pouches strung across his chest, and followed Jess. A short stair climb up the wall later, the guardians were poking their heads out of the stairwell looking at the main place guardians arrived at to rest and rearm. "I can't believe I'm back here." Austin said gravely. Jess just put a hand on his shoulder. "Okay." She said. "The hangar is to the left." Without another word Jess and Austin slowly made their way towards the hangar. They inched along as guardians ran past them, oblivious. Finally, when they got to the hangar floor, there was a fighter class ship landed in between two pillars. It was a silver ship, with blue decoration. Its wings were pointed downwards at a shallow angle, under the wings were a rack of three missiles each. The wings themselves were smaller at the tip with a point upwards, and wider at the base where it attatched to the fuselage, that had little stabilizing wings at the front of the nose. Both were pointed slightly downwards. The only thing pointing upwards were the main stabilizing fins on the rear. Austin was looking for a way past all the guardians in the hangar, when he saw Jess on the catwalks. Looking beside him to check, Austin confirmed that Jess somehow made it to her ship. Jess vanished in a flash of blue light, and a few seconds later her ship began to spin up it's engines. Austin felt panic begin to rise in his chest as the ship moved into the launch bay and started the launch sequence. "She isn't going to leave us, is she?" Came the static-heavy voice of the ghost in Austin's hands. Before the warlock could awnser, the world around the duo warped and folded, and suddenly they were in the cockpit of the ship. There was no window before Austin, and a brief look around and saw that the was in a raised gunner seat. Jess' pilot seat was in front and below Austin's, and had a window to see out of. "Just so you know: the safety is on." She called back to Austin. "Okay" the Hunter said to herself "let's see if the old girl still had it." She looked out the window before she pushed the throttle down and saw a guardian watching her. The red color with a blue stripe told her it was Sarah. With a deep breath Jess punched the throttle down and the ship shot out of the hangar.

Sarah watched her quarry escape for what felt like the hundredth time now. Bringing down a ship was too high profile, but she had a plan. She heard heavy footsteps and heavy breathing behind her and she turned her head to speak to the guardian behind her. "Go tell titan Natalie to gather her fireteam and follow that hunter's tracking chip; and that If they need a backup use the ship's tracker." The guardian nodded and continued his run to carry out his acting general's orders. Sarah turned back to the clear blue sky the ship just launched to. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of black and purple. It was always tge corner of her eye. She never saw her directly. She felt the gaze upon her. Sarah closed her eyes "it's okay, niko. One must be patient when hunting. You'll have your closure." Sarah felt the gaze turn away and she opened her eyes, not noticing the thin whisp of black smoke that escaped.

hours later the ship had landed and a camp had been made. Jess sat on one end of the small campfire, with her knees to her chest. Austin sat on the other without a helmet, or gauntlets, holding Casper in the palm of one hand. He dug into a pocket from the ones strung on his chest, and pulled out a ghost core. "Where did you get that?" Jess asked cautiously. Austin quickly corrected her thoughts and said "I picked it up from one of the warehouses. Also got a couple more things." As if on cue two small bottles of paint and paintbrushes appeared beside him. He held the core beside Casper and said "Okay, let's get you fixed up." Casper smiled and slowly floated up a couple inches and closed his eye. Austin watched as a blue shimmer came off Casper and went into the empty core. The core's eye lit up as Casper switched bodies and his old shell fell back into Austin's hand. A ball of blue plasma began to form around casper, with sparks of electricity arcing between the shell and the edge of the ball for seconds at a time. Austin proceded to take all the components of the old shell off of the maimed core and place them on Casper. As the bits of the shell got put on Casper, the plasma ball shrunk and eventually vanished altogether. "How are you feeling, buddy?" Austin asked his ghost, who was now flying around the campfire easily. "My shell still hurts, but that'll heal. And at least I can move again!" Came the giddy reply. Austin chuckled and becomes his ghost over. "Now, it seems like you need a new look." He looked over the fire at Jess "wouldent you say?" Jess stifled a chuckle and nodded. Austin gently grabbed one of Casper's flippers and gently pulled it off his core. Austin hated Sarah for the look of fear he got from Casper when he grabbed the piece, though. The guardian them proceded to grab the paintbrush, dip it in the black paint, and paint his companion. For a while, Austin would work on his friend. He would take a piece off, repair it if he could, and paint it black. He would then take the gold paint and trace over all the cracks in the shell until Casper would shine brighter than he had before Sarah got a hold on him. Jess wasnt listening when austin spoke to her, and only noticed when he called her name. She apologised and asked him to repeat himself and austin oblidged. "I thought you would have been gone by now. What changed your mind?" Jess scoffed "what tells you i did?" Austin sat in silence for a while, lost in his work "i noticed when you shut off the tracker in your ship." Jess was silent. She hated When he was right. She was so lost in thought that she jumped when a half painted casper spoke "im sorry for what i said about your mentor. I was just angry and knew it was a soft spot for you." Jess didnt look up from the fire when she replied. "It dosent changle the fact that you're right. I should never have let you be given to sarah." Jess watched as casper accepted another painted piece from austin and asked "how did you know GLX?" Casper chuckled when he responded "i ran into him a few times. Never When you were with him, but I knew him pretty well. He called me 'little light' like most guardians did." Jess listened as Casper went on a rant about how he missed being amongst other guardians, and then stumbling through multiple apologies when Austin gave him a playful look of shock. Eventually Austin was done painting, and Casper was ecstatic. He was giggiling to himself while flying around the camp. "Only one more thing." Austin told him. Casper flew to Austin one last time, and Austin took off his ring. With great care, he plucked the gems out of their holes and held the biggest one up to Casper. "I can't take that." Casper said. Austin just chuckled and took is top flipper again. With a small solar flame he cut out exact holes for each of the gems, and placed them inside. After a few shakes to confirm that they wouldn't fall out, he held the piece back up to Casper. The ghost reluctantly took the piece again and yelled as he did so. Casper blinked a few times and looked around the camp. "Is everything okay?" Austin asked. Casper just smiled "these aren't gems. They're data Engrams." Casper savored the look of surprise from his guardian and continued "which, first off: means I can do this" Austin watched as casper spun his back flippers and three more gems identical to his own appeared on his bottom flippers. Casper spun and his guardian saw the same gems, in the same places on his back flippers. Casper smiled and continued "second off: they hold coordinates to somewhere in the reef." Austin looked to Jess. Her face unreadable under her helmet. "If there was any a time to not help us. Now would be it."

Jess agreed to stay and it took Austin and Casper a long while more to get to sleep. When he eventually did, Austin woke up in the white place. He sat up and spoke into the surrounding void. "can you do this at any time, niko?" He heard a chuckle behind him and turned to see the smiling ghost. "Yes we can! We just prefer it at times that don't inconvenience you." Austin playfully thanked her and then asked "So why am I here this time?" Niko flew around the warlock so she was in front of him "we have figured out what you need to do. First, the thing blocking Sarah's connection to the traveler is coming from somewhere in the reef. You need to go there and find it. Second, we have found a way to clear your name." Austin's jaw dropped. "Really? That's amazing news! How?" Niko just smiled and said in a curious voice "well. Easiest thing first. You need to break into the city and find the vanguard termanal." Austin's optimism vanished as he realised where niko was going. "The terminal that can playback ghost feeds?" "Yes" niko responded "and it can take any piece of the ghost to access it. Like, for instance, the only remaining piece of niko that is around Sarah's neck." Austin laughed and shook his head. "That's like trying to pull a tooth from a sleeping bear; but I don't see another option. We'll go to the reef first, it'll give me some time to think." Niko nodded and opened her shell "then I think it's time you stop dreaming, and start thinking." A blast of light came from her shell, not unlike ghosts do when they revive their guardians, and Austin woke up. His new orders in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay!!! Early post! Definitely because I wanted to post early as a treat and not because of some unforseen thing that could affect my posting on sunday.....
> 
> cya later
> 
> -a totally normal sharky


	15. Broken

Austin cursed as he cut his hand on a piece if metal. He and Jess had been trying to get the ship ready for launch all morning. It seemed like just as soon as they solved one problem, another took its place. The latest problem that graced Austin's day, was the fact that the engine was sputtering and refusing to turn on. He had elected to try to find the problem while jess took a bow to try to find some food. Casper floated over to Austin's hand and healed it with a quick scan. "You do know you dont have to heal me every time I get a scratch, right?" Austin asked. Casper nodded as he went inside the engine for a quick look around "yeah, but I need to do it to distract myself." Austin nodded and continued to try to undo the bolt he was working on. He pulled casper out of the engine long enough to kill the final crossbeam out. Casper went into the small hole that was created and shone a light out of his eye, making the relatively new gold streaks on him shimmer. "Oh, yeah. Found the problem! One of the hydraulic lines melted. Probably from the speedy takeoff yesterday." Austin sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "How bad is it?" Casper didn't speak as he transmitted a laser cutter, a new pipe, and some adhesive into Austin's hands. "That bad." The warlock sighed again.

Jess had been hunting for about two hours and found nothing. Now she was sitting in the branches of a tree waiting for something to walk into her poorly laid trap. In a flash of blue light that Jess barely noticed, wilbur appeared and went to his spot hovering over her shoulder. "What are you thinking?" He asked his guardian. "You already know." Jess replied. Wilbur took a second to respond. "Tell me anyway." Jess almost laughed. How could she put what she was thinking into words? She looked at her ghost blankly for a few seconds, Then sighed. "I dont know what I'm thinking." Casper just nodded and looked at the forest floor. A small rabbit wandered into view, and jess grabbed her bow from the branch it was hanging on and nocked an arrow. She was about to pull the bow back when a massive rumbling scared her prey away. Jess made a sound of frustration and looked for the source of the sound. Above the forest canopy, she saw a guardian dropship coming in to land. "Okay, that's too close." She said to herself. Jess jumped down to the forest floor and began sprinting towards camp.

Austin closed the access hatch for the engine when he heard jess come back through the trees. "Please tell me you have the ship fixed." She said. Austin leaned against the ship and answered "yeah, but they're going to be offline for a while, and before you ask: no, they will not be online in enough time to avoid those guardians." Jess cursed and went up beside Austin. "Okay, we need to set up a perimeter. Make sure no one has gotten near." A voice came from the trees, mocking the duo "oh, I think that ship has sailed." Austin and jess whipped around. Jess pulling out her hand cannon, and austin dropping to one knee with a scout rifle. Coming into the clearing was a titan. With a slight twist of their helmet they revealed themself to be Sarah. Casper, who had dissapeared once sarah arrived, transmatted Austin's helmet onto his head. Jess had yet to do the same. "Sarah." Jess said, still holding her hand cannon on target. Sarah just put her hands behind her back and, with an unusual confidence, responded "Jess. It's been a while. Perhaps too long, considering how far you've fallen." Austin had a wierd feeling. "Where is the rest of your team? I know you didn't come alone." Sarah waved at him as if she was waving the question out of the air. "We'll get to that in due time, But I want to know how casper is doing! Still mad at your guardian, little light?" She chuckled a bit. Jess and austin looked at each other. This was not normal sarah behavior. Jess took the moment to say "Sarah. I think that's enough." Whatever she was going to say after that was cut off as sarah snapped towards her new target "and you! Galavanting off with the person that took everything away from you!" Jess lowered her gun a bit. "What do you mean?" Sarah put her hands back by her sides "it wasn't enough that he had to take your mentor away, he had to take away your home, and fireteam." Jess's gun was at her side now. Her grip loose. "Dont you think its wierd how GLX's wound was bot a clean cut like a cabal gladiator would inflict? It was a hole. One that was caused by, say, an explosive sniper round?" Jess spoke in practically a whisper "how do you know that?" Sarah walked towards towards Jess "it wasn't an unknown death, jess. Everyone saw him." Sarah finally put a hand on Jess' shoulder. "Face it jess. Austin is GLX's murderer" Jess' gun dropped from her hand as sarah gently turned her towards a slowly retreating Austin.

Jess' mind was scrambled. No single thought was more clear than another. Until one emotion broke through the chaos: rage. An unnatural rage flowed through jess as she looked upon austin. Her solar and arc light flowed through her in response to her anger, along with an unusual chill that crept into her spine and chest she was faintly aware of sarah disappearing in a burst of blue light. Her vision tunnled until the warlock in front of her was the only thing she saw.

"Jess. Calm down!" Wilbur yelled at his guardian. Austin, meanwhile was studying this new threat. Jess had somehow combined her arc and solar light and created two swords out of it. Her left arm was engulfed in fire, and her right one had electricity arcing off of it. Both hands held a short sword of the same element. Her eyes were glowing orange with the occasional spark of arc energy, but the thing that scared Austin the most, however, was the fact that Jess' torso was covered in void light. "Wilbur" Austin said to the ghost still trying frantically to calm Jess. "I think it's time for you to dissapear. I dont want you to get hurt." Wilbur looked at Austin, and then back at Jess. "Good luck" he said before disappearing in a flash of blue light. Austin slowly reached up to grasp the hilt of his sword. A small movement of Jess' head was the only warning before she rocketed forward at the warlock. Austin blinked backwards while unsheathing his sword. A quick slash was all he needed to slow down Jess enough to block her next attack. Sparks flew as the swords connected. Jess was strong, she practically pushed austin onto one knee before he blinked past her. "Six o'clock high!" He heard casper say into his ear. Austin rolled away just as Jess' swords dug into the ground. "Good to have you back" austin told casper. Jess was unrelenting in her attacks. Austin was forced to dodge her swords without even a second to think. If austin dared to block Jess with his sword, he would have to blink away to avoid a massive flurry of sword strikes. Using the light to lift himself out of Jess' reach, Austin infused his sword with solar light and sent a giant wave of fire at Jess. The hunter simply twirled around the explosion and dashed at austin again. The warlock blinked past his adversary, and managed to lock their blades together. "Stop, Jess!" He yelled at her. "Let's just talk this out!"jess managed to get one of her swords unlocked and went to stab Austin. Austin winced as he made his decision and prepared for the wave of tiredness. His sword dematerialised from his hand and he curled up into a ball in the air. Jess had little time to react as austin was struck by lightning and thrust his hand at the ground.

the shockwave from the explosion Austin set off threw Jess backwards. She tucked in her limbs and used her swords to stop herself. She looked up at austin, who was floating a couple inches off the ground with arc energy flowing from his fingertips. As well as electricity arcing off and across him. Austin was smiling under his helmet as he turned his palms upward and let the electricity flow from them, forming a giant column of lightning. Jess hesitated for a moment before charging him again. Austin blinked past her and used the light to throw her off balance. He then let the electricity pour forth into his target. Jess blocked some of it with her arc blade and danced around the rest. Jess couldn't get close as austin would simply blast her area with arc energy. As austin was keeping back jess he heard a faint whisper that didn't sound like casper. "This isnt working." He instinctively looked towards the source of the whisper, but nothing was there. He turned back towards jess, but she wasn't there. He froze as he tried to listen for her. He whirled around to see two swords slice two gaping craters in his chest. Austin rolled across the forest floor to his knees, losing his grip on the light. He ripped his sword from his back and brung his it up to block another overhead strike from Jess. The whisper returned, more clear this time "we need to let him do it. Just this once!" Jess' swords melted through Austin's and cut two slashes on his left arm. Jess punched Austin with the small cross guard of her solar sword. Austin blinked away and fell to his hands and knees, blood covering his armor. The pain from his wounds dulled as casper set to work on them. The whisper returned and he recognized it as Niko "yes! Do it, Austin! Now!" Austin felt light pour through him and he got up and rushed Jess. The hunter was all to eager to meet him and likewise dashed towards her opponent. When they were just a couple feet apart, austin called upon all the light he had in him and kept into the air and brought down a giant flaming hammer that created an explosion on impact. Austin righted himself and rose his hand to the air to create a void shield that he hurled at jess with a twirl. Knocked off balance by the hammer, she could barely block the shield. Using the disappearing hammer as a springboard, austin lept into the air and brought the sky with him as he descended, causing the resulting arc explosion to throw jess into a tree. Austin jumped up with a flip and dissapeared from sight as he pulled out two void swords. Jess didn't have enough time to react and was rewarded with two massive cuts to her torso. She retaliated by swinging her swords at austin, but was blocked by a quick flick and burst of arc as Austin summoned a staff of lightning. A heavy blow to the side of her head knocked her to her hands and knees, and she looked up into the barrel of a golden gun in a warlock's hands.

Austin blinked as the flaming hand cannon bucked heavily in his hands. When he opened them he was back in the world of swirling white and yellows. His legs gave out and he dropped to the ground, breathing heavily. He lazily rolled to his back and saw Niko floating around him like casper did when he first cast his nova bomb. He tried to form words, but all he could manage were heavier and lighter breaths. "Take your time" niko said, monotone, but concerned. "That was seven supers in one battle. You are lucky you are still alive." A few minutes passed and Austin could not find the energy to lift a finger. However, he did find his voice long enough to breathe out "what was that?" Niko flew to beside Austin's head and said "that, was an extension of the traveler's gift to you the first time you came here. Now, you wont be able to summon other classes' supers ever again, but you have been given mastery of every super in case you need to steal one at some point."Austin could not even find the energy to nod and just lay looking up at the swirling "ceiling" of Niko's home. "Austin, something is happening. The anger Jess had blocked her from the traveler for a short time. It was the same thing that is blocking Sarah. You need to find it. If this happens to even a small group of guardians then it could be catastrophic." Austin looked at niko and with a slightly stronger voice, asked "you said the source of the blocking was in the reef. Any idea where?" Niko shook her head and austin sighed "well, put me back. We'll leave for the reef as soon as we can. Contact me if anything comes up." Niko smiled and nodded as her shell opened up "aye-aye, captain!" When austin woke up back in reality Jess' body was still disintegrating.

When Jess was revived the first thing she noticed was that it was night. She gazed up at the canopy of stars and nebulas and tried to move her hands. She craned her neck to look at her hands and saw that her wrists were bound by old rope. "Hello?" She called into the night. Only to get shushed by someone in the darkness. A small flame appeared in a hand that jess could tell was Austin's. The flame illuminating his face, he held a finger to where his mouth would be if his helmet was off and looked towards his left where jess saw a soft blue glow. "Its the first good sleep he's had since we rescued him. He's been having the equivalent of panic attacks, so I give him tasks to keep him occupied. It seems to be working." Jess quickly asked the question that she knew austin had been dreading. "Did you kill GLX?" Austin sighed and said quietly "I guess so. It was before even my first death. It's entirely possible. I was a guardian hunter. I had killed at least fifty of them before your mentor. I'm disgusted by it now, but I guess I had some reason." Jess struggled against the ropes for a few seconds as she asked "how long has it been since-" "since you tried to kill me?" Austin interrupted her thought. Jess slumped down a but as austin wandered her "two days. Your little outburst caused a lot of noise. Fallen, guardian, and even cabal were investigating the area. I managed to hide the ship somehow, but wilbur and I agreed to wait just in case you went nuclear again. I know those ropes can't hold you, but it will give me and casper time to get away if need be. And maybe even take Wilbur with us if you get particularly bad." Jess renewed her struggles. Until austin clarified "that's not a threat made out of maliciousness. You have been known to get tunnel vision when you get angry. I just want to protect wilbur." Jess gave up on trying to escape from her bonds and simply said "I'm sorry." Austin leaned forward, the light from his flame lighting more of his face. With a tone that hid anger in its depths he growled "listen, we are about to go to the reef. You are a wild card, and wild cards there can get me killed and casper hurt. I've already left him twice, and both times he nearly died. I cant do that again, and I keep you around solely for the reason that you won't hurt a ghost. However, you went from helping me fix the ship to trying to kill me in less than fifteen seconds. If you turn on me that fast you are a danger to this whole operation. You've gotten mad at me multiple times while you have been with me, but now it's my turn." The flame grew in Austin's hand "if you so much as blink in a way I dont like I will kill you. Wilbur can revive you as many times as it takes." Austin waved a hand and the ropes fell limp off Jess' wrists. She rubbed her hands as austin continued "last chance. Run, or stay with me." Jess looked at austin, seeing some part of him that was hidden before. "I guess I dont have a choice, do i?" Austin slightly nodded and the flame went out, leaving the camp in darkness. Jess found a tree and sat slumped against it. Looking at the night sky, she found the faint purple trail of the reef and sighed. Austin was right. She was a loose cannon, and if she was going to survive with him, she was going to have to pick a side. Only two options remained: hunt, or be hunted. With a final nod, she made her choice. She was a hunter, and traveler be damned if it wasn't going to stay that way. She looked down at the blue glow of casper and silently promised him that she would not make the mistake of hurting him again. She looked back out at the reef and slowly drifted off to sleep, visions of fallen and queens dancing behind her eyelids.

**Author's Note:**

> WOO!! I'm back!!! So I learned alot about writing from reading through my last work, so imma try to improve. As always feedback of any kind is very appriciated
> 
> Cya later,  
> -sharkbit


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